In Medieval times comet were thought to foretell plague , wars , and the deaths of tycoon , so a pandemic should be just the time for one to show up . These days we know comets are marked-up snowballs leftover from the material that formed the Solar System and not related to terrene events , but it seems we are getting a peculiarly unusual one anyway , and it may put on a quite striking show .
The interior Solar System is visited by dozens of comet each year , but most are so weak it takes a scope to see them . When C/2019 Y4 ATLAS was discovered back in December ( coincidentally around the time word of the new coronavirus reached beyond Wuhan ) it look to be just another of these . ATLAS ’s brightness was anticipated to peak around magnitude 9 , some 40 times too faint to see with the au naturel eye .
It has now transcend that brightness two month early , and is getting brighter every night . cometic brightness is notoriously hard to predict , as those who have been piercingly discomfited byonecomet afteranotherfailing to live on up to prospect can attest . With ATLAS already behaving in unexpected way , it could either be the brightest comet in 13 years or another misfire .
The two dependable comet of late years were obliterate from most of the Earth ’s population deep in the southern sky when at their better , so a generation has grown up in the northern cerebral hemisphere without the opportunity to see the true aura of visitor shiny than Venus .
alternatively of brightening at a relatively unfluctuating rate of a magnitude every week or two , ATLAS suddenly skip over in order of magnitude a hundred - fold in luminousness in a few days . Comets often brighten as the Sun vanish their volatile elements ( their Methedrine ) , but such a rapid alteration is hard to explain . If the current trend continues it will be seeable to the naked eye by early April and spectacular in early May .
Unfortunately , by late May , as it approaches bill brightness it will be so close to the Sun it will be seeable for a decreasing amount of clock time after sunset until it vanishes altogether . It ’s visibleness after it reemerges from the glare is anyone ’s guess .
Anyone in the northern hemisphere with field glasses or a scope can track ATLAS ’s motion already – it ’s currently track in Ursa Major and moving tardily , although its apparent motion will speed up dramatically .
Experienced comet - watchers are already express surprise at its appearance . At two - thirds of the diam of the Moon it ’s much larger and more diffuse than would be wait of an object at this space . Again , we do n’t be intimate why .
A more explicable feature article is that ATLAS ’s 5,467 - year sphere is almost identical to that of the Great Comet of 1844 , a visitant so impressive it had atown in Queensland , Australia named after it . It ’s thought both were once part of a big aim that break out up , probably when the shabu holding it together melted on a old close approach to the Sun . These two , and perchance other factor , continued to trace the same orbit , but with the distance between them produce with time .
H / TSpace.com
