For several days, Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas was visible with the naked eye to the west, shortly after sunset. And it will remain that way this week, even if it gradually loses its luster.
Have you looked at the evening sky? Comet Tsuchenshan-Atlas can be seen with the naked eye or binoculars… and will not be visible again until after 80 thousand years. Enjoy it this week!
It can be seen above the horizon at nightfall towards the west. Then it quickly approaches the horizon, but we can clearly see the luminous “core” and the amazing tail.
A comet is a ball of ice and dust orbiting the Sun, in a highly elliptical orbit. When a comet approaches the Sun, it heats up: its ice sublimates into a gas, that is, it goes directly from a solid to a gaseous state. Under the influence of this “evaporation”, the core releases up to several hundred tons of dust per second.
Comets, when approaching the Sun, usually have two tails that can be slightly separated. The first is the dust trail. The second is gas. Due to solar radiation, gases become ionized (become electrically charged) and are “driven” by the solar wind. So this second tail is blown away from the Sun and transformed.
Unlike shooting stars, comets do not appear to move across the sky when viewed with the naked eye, due to their distance.
