NEW YORK — Two brilliant green comets are streaming by the skies and are seen to skygazers in the Northern Hemisphere.
Both hail from the outer edges of our photo voltaic system — probably what’s generally known as the Oort Cloud, nicely past Pluto. Comet Lemmon may have its closest brush with Earth on or round Tuesday. The different cosmic snowball, Comet SWAN, ought to have its flyby with Earth on Monday, however it’s headed away from the solar and will probably develop dimmer as the times move.
Spotting two comets concurrently with out particular tools is “rare, but not unprecedented,” stated Carson Fuls, director of the University of Arizona-based sky survey that noticed Comet Lemmon.
To see the pair, go exterior simply after sundown and look to the northern sky for Comet Lemmon shut to the horizon. Comet SWAN may also be close to the horizon, however to the southwest.
The double comets may very well be seen with binoculars by the top of the month, however consultants aren’t but certain how brilliant they’ll stay, stated astronomer Valerie Rapson of the State University of New York at Oneonta.
Comets are frozen leftovers from the photo voltaic system’s formation billions of years in the past. They warmth up as they swing towards the solar, releasing their attribute streaming tails.
Comet Lemmon, additionally designated C/2025 A6, was found in January by a telescope scouring the night time sky for near-Earth asteroids. Comet SWAN, also referred to as C/2025 R2, was noticed in September by an beginner astronomer utilizing pictures from a spacecraft operated by NASA and the European Space Agency.
The comets are green due to gases streaming off their surfaces. From Earth, they’ll appear like grey, fuzzy patches.
Earlier this yr, a green comet broke up because it swung by the solar, dashing hopes of a naked-eye spectacle. A brilliant comet known as Tsuchinshan-Atlas zoomed by Earth in 2024, and different notable flybys included Neowise in 2020 and Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the Nineties.
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