In two weeks it will be visible from the Canary Islands at sunset.

C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-Atlas), called comet of the centurywill cease to please the earliest canaries, starting today, after it begins to set behind the Sun. a rare astronomical phenomenon that Canary Islands who was lucky enough to witness the last few days will have vis in just two weeks. The meteorite will become visible again starting October 10th and will remain visible throughout the weekend. This time, however, it will not appear with the first rays of the sun, but with the arrival of sunset. The comet will then move away from Earth, entering the infinity of the Universe in its highly elliptical orbit, never to be seen again.

Tsuchinshan-Atlas is a medium-sized comet, five kilometers in diameter, covered with a dense layer of ice. Its icy covering was formed from the Oora cloud.etc. And this galactic structure, consisting of hundreds of thousands of widely dispersed objects, is located on the borders of the Solar system. It is not surprising that, being almost a light year from the Sun, the objects that make up it suffer the coldest fate. Large rocks that spin there with no apparent direction, in some cases become so large that they are capable of creating orbits that capture other objects in their surroundings.

However, the interaction between these objects sometimes becomes violent, causing many of them to rush into the infinity of the Universe or straight towards the Sun. Just like what happened with the C/2023 A3.

It is this way of approaching the Sun that gives it a retrograde orbit, meaning it orbits the Sun in the opposite direction to how the planets rotate. After tens of thousands of years of travel This year it passed only 58 million kilometers from our star.. The same distance separates the latter from Mercury.

long journey

This comet was discovered independently on January 9 last year at the Purple Mountain Observatory (China). A discovery that was later confirmed on February 22, 2023, by the Smith Half-Meter Telescope located in Sutherland, South Africa, as part of the Atlas (Asteroid Impact Last Alert System) observing program. A program that has also shown interest in the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), which plans to build an Atlas installation on El Teide.

By nickname comet of the century It was located at that time in the constellation Serpent’s Tail. After more than a year, its orbit approached the Sun and became visible from Earth.

The comet’s proximity to our planet has made the comet’s passage one of the events that has caused the most excitement in the Canary Islands in recent weeks. It is not for nothing that the Archipelago is one of the regions of the planet privileged to see this phenomenon. However, starting today, the comet will disappear behind the Sun, and due to its blinding brightness, it will be impossible to see it in the first days of October.

Starting October 10, the comet will appear in our sky again, but this time around sunset. The comet is expected to be bright enough to see its nucleus with the naked eye, but because it is so low on the horizon and immersed in twilight, it may not be as impressive and won’t be as easy to find. For this reason, when night falls, to guarantee an image of the comet, we will have to try to see it with binoculars, a small telescope, or through the lens of a good camera.

Best sunset

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Day. October 12 The comet will reach its closest point to Earth, making this one of the best days to enjoy this astronomical phenomenon. “Watching the sunset these days would be a great plan,” says Alfred Rosenberg, promoter of the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC).

This weekend it will be visible from anywhere with an unobstructed western horizon visible about 40 minutes after sunset. At this time, you can perfectly observe the comet’s nucleus and its tail, probably also at a glance. As the minutes pass, the sky will continue to darken, but the comet will move closer to the horizon, dimming its brightness as its light has to pass through more of Earth’s atmosphere.

In these last days near the Earth, The comet will reveal a previously unknown face for the first time: the face of two tails.. And these objects usually have two tails behind them: one ion tail and the other dust tail. The first is produced by ionization of the gases it contains, “combed by solar radiation”; and the second, made of dust, will remain in its orbit.

Because of these characteristics, they end up moving in opposite directions, which at first glance results in two different tails being separated. “Until now we’ve seen them together, but from mid-October we’ll be able to see them separately,” says Rosenberg, who insists it will be seen as a “shaggy” tail.

The Canary Islands have become one of the regions of Spain where you can see the comet before it was lost in space. “It’s because of the latitude,” explains Rosenberg, who recalls that, for example, on the peninsula it would be more difficult because the light of the Sun would not allow us to see the comet. “The ideal areas are those below the equator,” he points out.

As it moves away, it will only be visible through larger telescopes until it cools again and disappears. forever lost within the solar system. This will happen from October 20 to 25.

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