As the political season heats up in the United States, we often hear the term “October surprise” to describe some unexpected event that could completely change the electoral landscape.
This year the term also applies to the heavens, since a new comet has been discovered and may become quite beautiful in our sky.
No, I’m not referring to Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (aka C/2023 A3), which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.
This is a completely new comet that was discovered on Sept. 27 and is now making a dash toward the inner solar system.
This new comet is named Comet ATLAS (C/2024 S1) and was found by astronomers at Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System in Hawai‘i.
As confusing as it seems, the naming system for comets is rather straightforward — for astronomers, anyway.
The comet discoverer comes first (ATLAS, in this case) and is followed by “C/.” This indicates that it’s a nonperiodic comet and that it may be its first journey through the inner solar system.
“2024” indicates the discovery year, and “S1” shows that it’s the first comet found in the latter half of September.
Still confused? Take it up with the International Astronomical Union, which is responsible for comet-naming systems.
If the current predictions for Comet ATLAS hold, it could become a real October surprise.
Of course, predictions about comets can be somewhat untrustworthy simply because comets seem to have minds of their own, especially those that, like this one, have spent their entire existence in the cold darkness of deep space.
Since they’ve never been affected by the sun’s heat, they often behave in unexpected ways. But that’s what’s fascinating about these chunks of primordial ice.
Comet ATLAS will swing past the sun on Oct. 28, when it may reach a brightness of magnitude -8.3.
So what does that mean? Well, if you’ve seen brilliant Venus low in the west during dusk this week, keep in mind that it currently shines at magnitude -4.0.
This means that the comet could outshine Venus by nearly 53 times!
But since the comet will lie so close to the sun at that time, only those in southerly latitudes may have a chance to spot it. Once it leaves the sun behind and begins its trek outward once again, however, all that could change.
If ATLAS survives its close encounter with our star, we expect it to shine brightly and grow a longer tail, perhaps making it quite amazing to see in the dawn sky for a few days.
Or not.
Yeah, I just had to say this, since comets do have a way of making fools out of astronomers who try to make predictions!
If you’d like to check it out, you’ll need to rise before the sun and have a low horizon to your east and southern sky.
How bright it appears — and how quickly it fades over next week — is anyone’s guess, but we think it’ll fade fairly rapidly.
It may disappear from view completely by early November but may still be visible in binoculars.
We’ll just have to wait and see!
