See the ‘Golden Comet’ C/2025 ATLAS shatter into 3 pieces after close encounter with the sun

Comet C/2025 ATLAS, discovered by NASA’s ATLAS telescope network — the same system that spotted the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS — has broken apart into three fragments after passing close to the Sun.

A recently discovered comet known as the “golden comet” has dramatically broken apart into three pieces after a close encounter with the sun, according to new photos captured by astronomers in Italy.

Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) was discovered in May 2025 by NASA’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) — a global network of telescopes in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa that scans the sky nightly for asteroids, comets and other celestial objects. The same system also discovered comet 3I/ATLAS, only the third confirmed interstellar comet ever observed passing through our solar system.

After reaching its closest point to the sun, known as perihelion, on Oct. 8, astronomers confirmed that Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) fragmented into three separate pieces.

New observations from Nov. 11–12, captured using the Copernicus Telescope at the Asiago Observatory in northern Italy, show the comet after it came within about 0.33 astronomical units (AU) or about 30.7 million miles from the sun — closer than Mercury’s orbit.

Italian astronomers reported witnessing the comet’s disintegration in near real time. During the same observing session, Francesco Ferrigno of Parthenope University also photographed bright auroras illuminating the sky, the result of a severe geomagnetic storm impacting Earth at the time.

Astronomers say comets often fragment as they approach the sun because of intense heat and gravitational forces, which can cause internal gases and ices to rapidly expand and break the nucleus apart.

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