Newfound Comet Leonard will blaze into view this year
By Joe Rao 5 hours ago
The comet was discovered in January and may be bright enough to see without a telescope.
The newfound comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) will make its closest approach to Earth on Dec. 12, 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)
A new comet is on its way in toward the sun, with prospects that it may become bright enough to see with the unaided eye by year's end.
The object in question is Comet Leonard, catalogued C/2021 A1 and was discovered by astronomer Gregory J. Leonard on Jan. 3 at the Mount Lemmon Observatory, also known as the Mount Lemmon Infrared Observatory. The observatory is located on Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains, approximately 17 miles (28 kilometers) northeast of Tucson, Arizona. Mr. Leonard is a senior research specialist for the observatory's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory's Catalina Sky Survey.
When Mr. Leonard found the comet's image, it was an exceedingly faint object of magnitude 19. That is nearly 160,000 times dimmer than the faintest stars visible to the unaided eye. Not surprisingly, when it was first sighted the comet was some 5 astronomical units from the sun (one astronomical unit, or AU, is equal to the Earth's average distance from the sun of 92.855 million miles, or 149.565 million km). So, at a distance of 5 AU, Comet Leonard was out near the orbit of Jupiter, far from the sun, but just beginning to feel the effects of its warming rays and slowly beginning the process for it to blossom into a conspicuous celestial object.
Evolution of a "hairy star"
Today we know comets to be made primarily of frozen gases that are heated as they approach the sun and made to glow by the sun's light. As the gases warm and expand, the solar wind — subatomic particles radiating out from the sun — blow the expanding material out into the comet's beautiful tail.
More:
https://www.space.com/newfound-comet-leonard-visible-2021?utm_source=notification
