Comet News: Astronomers discovered such a wonderful comet that will rain light in the sky next year – science news Hindi comet coming in 2024 could outshine the stars if we are lucky

Queensland: Astronomers have discovered a new comet – C/2023 A3 (Suchinshan-Atlas) – that could be next year’s brightest star. However, it is still at a distance of more than 18 months from Earth and the Sun. In the articles being written on this comet, it is being estimated how its spectacular view can be. People are also discussing a lot on social media about Comet Suchinshan-Atlas. What is the full story of this new comet? Several dozen new comets are discovered every year, most of which cannot be seen without the aid of an instrument. However, every year at least one comet appears that can normally be seen with the naked eye. Comets are celestial bodies whose central part is solid and the outer part is made of refrigerated gases like ammonia, methane and water vapor etc.

Comet is also called tail star, but it is not a star. Comets orbit the Sun in very large elliptical orbits and remain far from the Sun for most of their orbital periods. However, occasionally a very bright comet is visible. Since comets are short-lived and of momentary beauty, their discovery is always exciting, and the Tsuchinshan-Atlas proves to be perfect on this scale. Discovered independently by astronomers at the Purple Mountain Observatory in China and the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Final Warning System (ATLAS), the comet is currently a billion kilometers from Earth, between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. The comet is moving inwards and is moving in an orbit that will bring it within 59 million kilometers of the Sun in September 2024.

What are comets?

One of the reasons for the enthusiasm of astronomers is that it has been possible to find out about Suchinshan-Atlas at such a time when it is very far away. This comet is bright despite being very far from the Sun. When comets come close to the Sun, they heat up and the ice on their surface melts and turns into gas. Rising from the surface of the comet, this gas carries a cloud of dust, which becomes a huge cloud of gas and dust and its center is surrounded by a huge cloud of gas and dust called ‘coma’. The ‘coma’ is then pushed away from the Sun by the solar wind, resulting in the formation of a tail perpendicular to the Sun indicating its distance from the Sun. The closer a comet is to the Sun, the hotter its surface and the more active it is.

Historically, most of the brightest, most spectacular comets have followed orbits that bring them closer to the Sun than Earth’s orbit, and Tsuchinshan-Atlas certainly lives up to the notion that the closer, the better. Suchinshan-Atlas proves to be better in other ways as it is larger in nuclear size which makes it more luminous. It is sure to come very close to our star. It will then pass almost directly between Earth and the Sun. The closer a comet gets to Earth, the brighter it will appear to us. It is expected that this comet may be the brightest star. According to some predictions, it could be up to 100 times more luminous.

Jonty Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland