Do Look Up: A Comet Is Visible After Not Being Seen For 80,000 Years
It’s been 80,000 years since a meteorite by the name Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS has visited our little planet called Earth. But now it’s back and even visible by the naked eye in the western skies.
Accuweather reports that Comet C/2023 A3–its technical name–is best seen after sunset to the west for roughly a half-hour to hour. The frozen rock will apparently appear brighter higher in the sky to start before becoming dimmer. Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS should continue being visible through October 24, per CBS News, with a tail roughly 18 million miles long.
The Courier-Jounal adds that this is the brightest comet of the year and that it’s thought to have originated in the Oort Cloud that’s past Pluto. The Oort Cloud (not to be confused with a fart cloud) is “like a big, thick bubble around our solar system, made of icy, comet-like objects,” according to NASA.