The “comet of the century” visible from this evening in France

The “comet of the century”, as it is already nicknamed, is visible from the northern hemisphere from this Friday, October 11 and until October 31. Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, its scientific name, is located closest to Earth, 71 million kilometers away. It looks very bright and therefore visible to the naked eye.

If the weather is suitable, which is the case this Friday, October 11, “ it will catch your eye » every evening while watching « in the direction of the setting sun », according to Lucie Maquet, astronomer at IMCCE, located within the Paris-PSL Observatory. You will also need to watch at least an hour after sunset.

Less and less bright

This Friday, October 11, the Sun will set around 7:05 p.m. in the North of France. So meet from 8 p.m. to hope to see her. But be careful, the comet will first appear very low, near the horizon line. It will then be higher and higher but less and less bright, moving away from the Earth.

The small body of rock and ice was detected in January 2023 by China’s Purple Mountain Observatory (Tsuchinshan), giving it the first half of its name. He owes the second to the confirmation of his existence by a telescope from the South African ATLAS program.

“A bit of a surprise at the last moment”

Since then, for astronomers, who like more rigorous nomenclatures, C/2023 A3 continues its journey towards the Sun. The study of its course is too short, “ barely a year behind “, to know precisely the path she has followed so far, explains Lucie Maquet, astronomer at the Institute of Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeris Calculation (IMCCE), located within the Paris-PSL Observatory. “ It’s a bit of a surprise at the last moment, but in any case it’s going to be a bright comet, that’s for sure », adds Lucie Maquet.

The comet follows an orbit which is not closed », with models suggesting that it could have been up to 400,000 times the Earth-Sun distance before reaching us. A journey counting in millions of years for this comet which probably saw the light of day in the Oort cloud, a hypothetical and gigantic assembly of tiny planets and celestial bodies, at the edge of the solar system.