Stargazers have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a comet larger than Mount Everest streaking across the sky this month.
Officially known as comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, the comet has been compared to the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars for its pair of ‘horns’ that are seen in the images.
Amateur astronomers have already been taking pictures of the comet with specialized telescopes, but it should soon be visible to the naked eye.
To see Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, look west in the night sky and find the Great Square of Pegasus, the four stars of nearly equal brightness.
Over the next few weeks, the comet will move from the Great Square of Pegasus toward the Ram Aries, which forms a loose V.
To see Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, look west in the night sky and find the Great Square of Pegasus, the four stars of almost equal brightness. Over the next few weeks, the comet will move from the Great Square of Pegasus toward Aries the Ram, which forms a loose V.
Some have speculated that the horseshoe shape also resembles the Millennium Falcon spaceship from Star Wars.
The comet completes one orbit around the Sun every 71 years and is seen from Earth only once in that period, making it a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Pons-Brooks will come within 72.5 million miles (116.8 million kilometers) of the sun on April 21.
After that, a close approach to Earth of 144 million miles (232 million kilometers) will occur on June 2.
However, if you’re in the northern hemisphere, the best time to see it will be at the end of March, according to Jessica Lee, an astronomer at the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
Although it is difficult to predict what a comet will look like and how bright it will be, the public should be on the lookout for what looks like “an irregularly shaped dirty snowball.”
“This comet is predicted to reach its maximum brightness for viewers in the northern hemisphere in late March,” Lee told MailOnline.
“At the end of March, the comet will be in the constellation Aries, which is located in the western sky just after sunset.
“Ideally, you would want to go somewhere with a clear view of the horizon in the west and choose a night with clear skies.”
When this close approach occurs, 12P/Pons-Brooks is expected to be visible to the naked eye as a faint star-like mass with a nebulous tail.
According to an astronomer, the comet erupted on October 31, the second time in a calendar month.
12P/Pons-Brooks photographed on March 7, 2024 by an amateur astronomer. It is visible to the naked eye as a faint star-like mass with a hazy tail.
The comet abruptly increased its brightness almost 100 times on October 31 and continued to get brighter in the following days. This is the second outbreak of 12P/Pons-Brooks in a calendar month and the third since July. Shown here on July 27, 2023, a week after its first burst.
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks captured over Somerset on March 6, 2024 by photographer Josh Dury. 12P/Pons-Brooks is one of the brightest known periodic comets, with an orbital period of 71 years.
“One of the brightest known periodic comets is currently heading towards the Sun,” said Professor Paul Strøm, an astrophysicist at the University of Warwick.
«It is also a large comet, comparable in size to Mount Everest.
“The comet is expected to reach a magnitude of 4.5, meaning it should be visible from a dark location in the UK.”
After getting closer to us, the space rock will be gravitationally flung back to the outer solar system and won’t return until 2095.
Comets consist of a nucleus made of ice, dust and small rock particles, surrounded by an outer “coma”: a hazy cloud of gases.
12P/Pons-Brooks is what is known as a cryovolcanic (or cold volcano) comet, meaning it exhibits volcanic activity.
But instead of spewing molten rock and lava like a volcano on Earth, a cryovolcanic comet releases a mixture of gases and ice.
When a cryovolcanic comet approaches the Sun, as 12P/Pons-Brooks is now doing, it heats up and generates pressure in the core.
Sketches of comet 12P/Pons-Brooks from January 21 and 22, 1884 during one of its rare periods of visibility
Comets are made of ice, dust, and rocky material, and are different from asteroids, which are made of metals and rocky material (conceptual image).
The pressure continues to build until the nitrogen and carbon monoxide explode, spewing icy debris through large cracks in the core shell.
These gaseous streams can form distinctive shapes when viewed through a telescope, such as the devil’s horns, also described as a horseshoe, or the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.
According to one astronomer, the comet erupted on October 31, the second time within a calendar month and the third since July.
Eliot Herman, an Arizona-based amateur astronomer who has been monitoring the comet, said it abruptly brightened nearly 100 times on Oct. 31 and continued to get brighter in the days that followed.
Like planets, comets in our solar system orbit the sun because they are attracted by the sun’s enormous gravitational pull.
12P/Pons-Brooks takes 71 years to complete one orbit around the Sun, but this is relatively short compared to the orbital length of most orbits which take thousands of years.