Posted on 05/12/2020 7:48:41 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Enter comet Swan, speeding past Earth before it laps our sun and takes another long, elliptical trip through the outer solar system. Swan last waved at Earth 25 million years ago, when mammals grazed on sprawling grasslands in the Oligocene Epoch. Now, this sun-tinged cosmic snowball may illuminate our early morning sky this month.
Swan was discovered by Michael Mattiazzo, an Australian amateur astronomer who analyzed images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft that observes our sun. Swan is outgassing hydrogen from water-ice on its toasty approach to the sun. This hydrogen burp shows up in ultraviolet images from SoHOs Solar Wind ANisotropies camera, for which the Swan comet is named.
Comet chasers in the countryside may spot Swan low in the northeastern sky at dawn. It will move closest to Earth on May 13, and continue to brighten on its trek through constellations Perseus and Auriga. It will reach perihelion, moving closest to the sun, on May 27.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Yea!!!!
I love star gazing.
Will it be visible from the northern hemisphere ?
That’s tomorrow morning. Will it be visible to the naked eye?
“Comet Swan is coming to town...”
So you’d better not pout.
The problem is that it is so near the sun that morning twilight interferes with seeing it.
I hope so.
Magnitude 5. Might be best to find first with binoculars. And then the naked eye.
And I’ll bet that the town just NE of me will be enough light pollution so I can’t see it.
*ping*
[singing] comet Swan is comin' to town...
The black swan already came to town.
Thanks for posting. Love me some comet out gassing.
It only comes by every 25,000,000 years?
Nancy Pelosi was just a young girl the last time this thing came around.
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