New ‘sungrazing’ comet could become visible to the naked eye during the day — if the sun doesn’t destroy it
Astronomers have discovered an exciting new “solar” comet that will make a dangerously close encounter with our home star in less than two months. Some experts predict that the big ice ball could become bright enough to be visible to the naked eye, even in daylight – but only if the comet survives its deadly solar slingshot.
The new comet, nicknamed C/2026 A1 (MAPS)was discovered on January 13 by a team of French astronomers at the AMACS1 observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile. It’s probably about 1.5 miles wide, and when it was first spotted, it was a little more than twice as far from the sun as Earth, according to Sky & Telescope Review.
C/2026 A1 belongs to the Kreutz family of “sungrazing” comets – a group of at least 3,500 comets whose orbits bring them within 850,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) of our home star. Kreutz sungrazers are suspected to be fragments of a single massive comet that was torn apart by the sun about 1,700 years ago, according to Live Science’s sister site. Espace.com.
The icy ball of rock and gas will reach its closest point to the sun, called perihelion, on April 4, when it will be about 800,000 km from our home star, or about 70 times closer to the sun than Mercury. At such close proximity, the comet will orbit the sun at more than 3.2 million km/h, subjecting it to intense gravitational pressure, high temperatures and a high dose of solar radiation.
This immense tension could end up tearing the comet apart, which happens to most other comets grazing the sun. But if it survives its perihelion perihelion, C/2026 A1 will be so changed by the event that it will shine like an incredibly bright star – potentially even during the day.
How bright will it be?
C/2026 A1 comes from a particularly notable subgroup of Kreutz sungrazers thought to be fragments of the “Great comet of 1106“, which itself was a remnant of the family’s massive ancestor. Alumni of this subgroup include Comet Ikeya-Seki, which shone brighter than the full moon in 1965, and Comet Lovejoy, which became a “headless wonder” after being largely torn apart in 2011.
As these comets made their own solar flybys, they became unusually bright, largely because of the significant amounts of gas released when they absorbed solar radiation. This also caused several sun grazers to develop spectacular broom-shaped tails as they approached the sun, which could also happen to C/2026 A1, according to Sky & Telescope.
It is too early to accurately predict how bright C/2026 A1 will be. However, some researchers believe it could become several times brighter than the full moon, making it visible to the naked eye in the daytime sky, according to an article in The conversation. But this will only happen if he survives perihelion; otherwise, it won’t come close to its maximum brightness.
Most solar comets are small and are discovered just a few days before reaching perihelion. Usually, they are also torn by the encounter. For example, during the April 2024 total solar eclipse, researchers discovered a tiny sungrazer just a few hours before it disappears forever.
How to see C/2026 A1 (MAPS)
If C/2026 A1 survives its deadly dance with the sun, it will likely reach peak brightness a few days later, as it approaches its closest point to Earth later this month.
Observers in the southern hemisphere will get the best views of the comet, according to Sky & Telescope. However, people in northern countries will still be able to see the object above the southwest horizon just before sunset.
But even if the comet disintegrates, it will still be visible from the end of March with good visibility. telescope or a pair of binoculars for stargazing.
Later in April, another potentially spectacular comet, C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS), could also become visible to the naked eye as it approaches its own perihelion on April 20. This ball of ice was previously (and perhaps prematurely) dubbed the “Great Comet of 2026.”
Time will tell if the C/2026 A1 can win this title.
