They captured the flyby of the “comet of the century” from Montsec.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tzuchinshan-ATLAS), known as comet of the century and which is about to enter the “select club of memorable comets”, was captured early yesterday morning from the Montsec mountain range. Dani Rodrigues Struve from the Montsec Astronomical Park in Ager took the photo accompanying the news.

The comet, emerging from the Orth cloud, was discovered in early 2023 by the Purple Mountain Observatory (China) and the Asteroid Last Alert System (ATLAS). It is expected to be closest to Earth on October 12, at a distance of about half an astronomical unit, about 70 million kilometers. Experts believe that it is one of the brightest comets of recent decades for several reasons: because of its approach, because of its size (about five kilometers in diameter) and because it is likely a “first appearance comet”, which makes there is enough ice on its surface, which easily evaporates. So far, the best images of this comet, discovered on February 22, 2023 in South Africa, have been taken from the southern hemisphere. The movement of a comet is invisible to the human eye.