Comet not seen since humans first left Africa 80,000 years ago returns to Earth

The comet, which has not been seen since ancient humans first left Africa 80,000 years ago, is on its way back to Earth and should be visible to the naked eye.

Officially known as C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), the comet was first documented on February 22 by four telescopes in South AfricaChile and Hawaii.

C/2023 A3 is currently clocking 180,610 mph between Saturn And Jupiter and will fly within 36 million miles of the Sun in September 2024.

And it is expected to be visible over our planet in a month.

Although not much is known about the comet, the data indicate that it is a “very large object” that must hover safely around the Sun before it can be seen with the naked eye in our skies.

C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) was first documented on February 22 by four telescopes in South Africa, Chile and Hawaii.  Pictured is a comet in space

C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) was first documented on February 22 by four telescopes in South Africa, Chile and Hawaii. Pictured is a comet in space

Qicheng Zhang of the University of Pennsylvania shared in a message astronomers that “conditions are exceedingly favorable for this comet, the most promising in many years, and it may well produce an Arend-Roland-like display after perihelion, if it actually survives (the geometry of this comet was very similar).

“However, I would definitely not consider that a guarantee at this point, and it wouldn’t be unprecedented if this comet had a sub-kilometre-sized nucleus that decays leaving us with nothing to see in the best theoretical terms.”

As of March 2023, the comet is still 680 million miles from the Sun, but it will fly between the Earth and the Sun in September.

Only in October will the comet emerge from the blinding rays of the sun, allowing the people of Earth to see it. And she could shine as brightly as Venus in the night sky.

Comets, nicknamed “dirty snowballs” by astronomers, are balls of ice, dust and rock that typically form from a ring of icy material called the Oort cloud at the outer edge of our solar system.

Around the comet is a thin gaseous atmosphere filled with a lot of ice and dust, called a coma.

As they approach the Sun, comets melt, releasing a stream of gas and dust blown off their surface by solar radiation and plasma, forming an outward-facing cloud tail.

Comets move towards the inner solar system as various gravitational forces force them out of the Oort cloud, becoming more visible as they get closer to the heat of the sun.

Less than a dozen comets are discovered each year by observatories around the world.

Although not much is known about the comet, the data indicate that it is a

Although not much is known about the comet, the data indicate that it is a “very large object” that must hover safely around the Sun before it can be seen with the naked eye in our skies.

C/2023 A3 is currently moving at 180,610 miles per hour between Saturn and Jupiter and will pass 36 million miles from the Sun in September 2024.

C/2023 A3 is currently moving at 180,610 miles per hour between Saturn and Jupiter and will pass 36 million miles from the Sun in September 2024.

Astronomers predict that C/2023 A3 could be about 100 times brighter than the green comet that hit the world in February.

The green comet, officially known as C/2022 E3, streaked past Earth for the first time since the Neanderthals 50,000 years ago.

E3 was discovered in March 2022 by astronomers using the Wide Field Camera at the Zwicky Transition Center.

Composed of ice and rock, with a spectacular plume of dust behind it, E3 is believed to have traveled billions of miles from the Oort cloud, the vast icy expanse of debris that surrounds the solar system.

Skywatchers who went outside to see the once-in-a-lifetime comet saw a bright greenish coma and a long glowing tail.

It was the first cosmic snowball visible to the naked eye since comet NEOWISE, officially known as C/2020 F3, in July 2020.

NEOWISE is the brightest comet to be seen in the northern hemisphere since Hale-Bopp in 1997.

Comet Neowise was first discovered and named after NASA’s Near-Earth Object Space Telescope (NEOWISE) in March 2020.

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