'Comet of the year' shines in new view from space
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) will soon be reaching its closest point to the Sun and continues to get brighter, providing some breathtaking views of Earth's skies for stargazers. However, a NASA astronaut has captured the best view of the celestial visitor yet. Matthew Dominick , commander of the space agency's SpaceX Crew-8 mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), filmed the comet rising above the edge of Earth's atmosphere through the station's glass dome window, known as the cupola.
"So far Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS looks like a fuzzy star to the naked eye looking out the cupola windows," Dominick wrote on X on Thursday. "But with a 200 mm, f2 lens at 1/8s exposure you can really start to see it. This comet is going to make for some really cool images as it gets closer to the sun. For now a timelapse preview."
Throughout the month of September, ground-based observers in the southern hemisphere have been able to photograph Tsuchinshan-ATLAS . However, the comet will come into view for northern hemisphere skywatchers on Monday. In exactly one week on Sept. 27, the comet will pass perihelion, the closest point in its orbit to the Sun at a distance of 36 million miles from our star. It is projected to shine as bright as Polaris the North Star . This is when it can best be viewed with the naked eye from the ground on Earth.
If it survives perihelion , the comet will be visible only before dawn going forward. Starting on Oct. 9, it should be visible at sunset. Its closest passage to Earth will be on Oct. 12. If the comet remains intact, it could be the brightest of the year.
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS originated from the Oort Cloud, a bubble of ice and dust that surrounds our solar system . It was discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory east of Nanjing, China on Jan. 8, 2023, and independently found by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in South Africa just six weeks later on Feb. 23, 2023.
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