A new comet is approaching Earth (and it looks very bright)

We anticipate it at particularly high luminosities, and potentially accompanied by a long tail. Comet C/2024 G3 is getting closer and should soon be visible from Earth.

“We should not make plans for the comet,” smiles the astrophysicist at the Paris observatory, Nicolas Biver, withactu.fr. It is especially the southern hemisphere that will have the chance to see it. In the northern part of the globe, it will not leave the daytime sky, and will therefore be much more difficult, if not impossible, to see with the naked eye.

Already passed “not far” ago… 190,000 years ago

Discovered this year by the Atlas system, the same one that spotted Tsuchinchan Atlas, stopping by to say hello in October 2024, this comet has, it seems, already passed close to Earth. At the time, it was not blue, but white. It was 190,000 years ago, our planet was in the middle of an ice age.

C/2024 G3 will pass closest to the Sun on Monday January 13, 2025. It will remain at a good distance, around 13.5 million kilometers, but this will be enough for it to suffer major damage. We are talking about perihelion.

At this proximity, we are still talking about hundreds of degrees Celsius, “or even more if it is dark in color,” adds the man who is also president of the SAF Comet Commission. In other words, even if we go at 130 km/s, the difficulty of surviving is there.

This is the key moment for it: either it disintegrates and everything is over, or its core holds on, and it suffers heavy losses during degassing, but can start again… And be visible from Earth.

Scientists anticipate a magnitude around -5 which makes it a stellar object as luminous as Venus, the brightest “spot” (-4.3 magnitude) at night after the Moon (-12 magnitude). It is also nicknamed the Shepherd’s Star. That’s saying something.

For comparison, Tsuchinchan-Atlas, quickly dubbed “the comet of the decade,” was at 2.4. And in magnitudes, the lower the number, the greater the brilliance.

It will take a combination of circumstances for it to be visible from France

The problem is that positioned as it is, C/2024 G3 will pass below our horizon as soon as the Sun sets in the northern hemisphere. In other words, it will only be in our field of vision during the day.

So okay, sometimes we get to see Venus in broad daylight. But the sky really needs to be particularly clear, and the observer must be far from any light pollution.

In addition, Venus is not as close to the Sun: the media Futura-Sciences estimates that the comet should be positioned three fingers arm’s length from our Sun. That is to say towards the Sun, and we remind you: you must not look in this direction, otherwise you risk blindness.

The only chance we have of being able to observe it is that a tail forms during the degassing caused by the proximity of the Sun. If this tail, which we were also able to observe for Tsuchinchan-Atlas, is long enough, then it could be that it extends somewhat beyond the horizon. “You will have to be very lucky,” says Nicolas Biver.

Otherwise, to see it, you will have to go through the Internet, where, as a general rule, cameras are installed and allow you to observe astronomical events from your sofa. actu.fr will of course keep you informed.

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