Stunning Comet Could Photobomb This April’s Total Solar Eclipse
February 23, 2024
3 Min read
Superb Comet could photobombe in April the total solar eclipse
COMETE 12P / PONS -BROOKS will make its approach closest to the sun in April – after North America is treated with a total solar eclipse
12p / Pons – Brooks is a Halley -type periodic comet with a 71 -year -old orbital period. It was discovered in 1812 and then recovered during the passages in 1883 and 1954. It should be cleared up on an apparent 4.5 magnitude (visible to the naked eye) during its next visit in April 2024.
This article is part of a special report On the total solar eclipse which will be visible in certain parts of the United States, Mexico and Canada on April 8, 2024.
On April 8, a band of Mexico, the United States and Canada will be entitled to a superb total solar eclipse, the second eclipse of this type to be widely visible in the United States in less than a decade. But this time, a comet can photograph the display.
The dirty ice ball, officially known as the 12p / Pons-Brooks comet, was discovered in 1812. The comet took a little over 71 years to orbit the sun on a path which sends it passing the orbit of Neptune, then diving into the inner solar system. During the current Passe of the Count 12P, professional and amateur astronomers observed a series of radiance of the ice ball which seemed to give it horns, which wins nicknames such as “Millennium Falcon” and “Devil Comet”.
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“This is one of the most brilliant comets in history,” explains Rosita Kokotanekova, planetary scientist at the Institute of Astronomy and National Astronomical Observatory at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
And the comet 12p will make her approach closest to the sun on April 21 – less than two weeks after the total solar eclipse. Timing means that the comet will appear about 25 degrees from the sun during the whole. (Your tight fist held at the length of the arm can be used to measure about 10 degrees in the sky.)
Credit: Katie Peek; Source: NASA (eclipse track data))
How much comet 12p can be visible during the whole is still uncertain. Although the sun is blocked at that time, the sky will not reach the real nocturnal colors – it will look more like twilight – and the exterior atmosphere of our star of the house, or Corona, will also be brilliant. On the basis of current observations, during all, the comet can be barely visible to the naked eye, or observers of the sky may need binoculars to spot it.
“I don’t want people to be disappointed if they don’t see the comet,” said Kokotanekova. “If people expect to see something extremely brilliant on an entirely dark sky, I think that as long as we have a lot of luck with an explosion, it will be more difficult than that.”
But if the comet cooperates, she might seem much brighter. Indeed, the COMETE 12P is known for its dramatic explosions, during which the ice ball loses a substantial amount of equipment, the two ice creams which sublimate in the gas and the dust collapsed in the surrounding space. This means that the comet appears brighter by increasing the size of the blurred halo around him.
“He had spectacular explosions,” said Kokotanekova about the Coat 12P. Scientists do not yet know what causes them, she adds-some researchers have theorized that cracks open in the frozen body of the comet or that cliffs on its potentially shredded surface collapse. “It’s a very unknown territory,” she says. “This is why we are interested in each comet who does this.”
Whatever the cause of 12p explosions, a well -timed part could transform the appearance of the COMETE 12P in total to amazing. That said, our limited recordings of previous approaches close to the comet in the sun suggest that her explosions could calm down while she is getting closer to our star – another puzzle for scientists to approach in the coming months.
Although total solar eclipses and luminous comets are each of the relatively rare phenomena, comet 12p would not be the first to appear during the whole. A historian reported having discovered a different comet during a total solar eclipse on what is now Turkey in this 418, for example. And since the late 1800s, observers have often spotted “Sungrazing” comets – which increased to around 850,000 miles from the star – during eclipses. Particularly notable, in 1997, the comet Hale-Bopp made its approach closest to the earth just two weeks after a total solar eclipse. We will just need to wait a little longer to see how the COMETE 12P / PONS-BROOKS will compare.
