On November 24, telescopes in the northern predawn sky picked up a brilliant comet between two galaxies. Comet C/2021 A1, commonly known as Leonard, sent a dazzling path of light across the cosmos, heralding its approach in the heavens above Earth. The arrival comes nearly a year after it was initially sighted near Jupiter in January 2021.
The comet, which has a greenish coma, was discovered harpooning the heart of NGC 4631, better known as the Whale Galaxy, by telescopes. With its closest approach to Earth (and even closer proximity to Venus) still to come in December, comet Leonard will get brighter.
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On December 12, the comet will pass closest to Earth, only a few weeks before it achieves its closest approach to the Sun. While comets are notoriously difficult to forecast, Comet Leonard is expected to brighten and become visible to the naked eye around December, according to some estimates.
In January this year, astronomer Gregory J Leonard found the comet at the Mount Lemmon Observatory. He detected the faint object, which was roughly 1,60,000 times fainter than the weakest stars visible to the naked eye. The comet was 149.565 million kilometres from the Sun at the time, close to Jupiter’s orbit.
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