A new comet is brightening quickly

Running out of things to do while being stuck at home? Take a look at the night sky! Plus, the sky has a new addition.

Comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4) is gaining a lot of attention as it plunges towards the sun. The comet is about two months away from making its closest approach to the sun.

The comet has become much brighter in the last two weeks. This brightening will continue if, and only if, there is enough debris for the sun to burn off. No one knows how big this comet is. The comet could be vaporized before becoming bright enough to put on an awesome show. However, there are some estimates that it will become brighter than Venus in the coming weeks and could even be seen during the daylight hours.

Here is an amazing image taken last week of the comet with several galaxies visible as well!

Comet ATLAS and the Mighty Galaxies
Image Credit & Copyright: Rolando Ligustri (CARA Project, CAST)

This image was taken from an observatory in New Mexico. Here is what Rolando Ligustri had to say about the above image.

"Explanation: Comet ATLAS C/2019 Y4 was discovered by the NASA funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, the last comet discovery reported in 2019. Now growing brighter in northern night skies, the comet's pretty greenish coma is at the upper left of this telescopic skyview captured from a remotely operated observatory in New Mexico on March 18. At lower right are M81 and M82, well-known as large, gravitationally interacting galaxies. Seen through faint dust clouds above the Milky Way, the galaxy pair lies about 12 million light-years distant, toward the constellation Ursa Major. In bound Comet ATLAS is about 9 light-minutes from Earth, still beyond the orbit of Mars. The comet's elongated orbit is similar to orbit of the Great Comet of 1844 though, a trajectory that will return this comet to the inner Solar System in about 6,000 years. Comet ATLAS will reach a perihelion or closest approach to the Sun on May 31 inside the orbit of Mercury and may become a naked-eye comet in the coming days."

To spot the comet, look in the northern sky. It is not far from the Big and Little Dippers. It is not usual for a comet to take a path that basically drops nearly straight down towards the sun from a northerly direction as we see it on Earth.

Image via Earthsky.org. Check out their recent story on Comet Atlas!

The comet will slowly drop toward the northern and northwestern horizon as it approaches the sun. (It makes its closest approach to the sun on May 31.) Of course, it will only be visible shortly after sunset as it gets close, but it should get much brighter as it approaches the sun!

Stay tuned for more updates as the comet gets closer. Thanks for reading. Just look up; you never now what you will see!