Stunning Comet Could Photobomb This April’s Total Solar Eclipse

A stunning comet could be a photobamba in April of a common solar eclipse of this year

TO Megan Barters Edited General Briner

This article is part Special report On a complete sunny eclipse, which will be visible from some parts of the United States, Mexico and Canada on April 8, 2024.

April 8 Swat Mexico, USA and Canada will be processed amazing Complete solar eclipseThe second is such an eclipse that will be widely visible in the United States in less than a decade. But this time, a comet can photograph a display.

Dirty ice ball, officially known as Comet 12p/Pons-BrooksIt was discovered in 1812. The comet takes a little more than 71 years, so that the orbit of the sun in the way, which sends its passage past the orbit of Neptune, and then immerses through the internal solar system. During the current passage of Cometa 12p, professional and amateur astronomers observed a series of flashes from a clever ice ball, which seemed to give him horns, earning him with nicknames, such as the Falcon of the Millennium and the Devil Comet.

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“This is one of the most striking comets in history,” says Rosita Kokanekova, a scientist planet at the Institute of Astronomy and the National Astronomical Observatory at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

And on April 21, Comet 12p will make its nearest approach to the Sun – no more than two weeks after a complete solar eclipse. Time means that the comet will appear about 25 degrees from The sun is in everythingThe field (your compressed fist held on the length of the arm can be used to measure about 10 degrees in the sky.)

How much the 12p comet can be during the totality is still unclear. Although the sun will be blocked at that time, the sky will not reach real night shades – it will be more like twilight – and our home star External atmosphere, or crown, will also shineThe field based on current observations, during the total of a comet, can be barely visible to the naked eye, or the sky observers may need binoculars to detect it.

“I do not want people to be disappointed if they do not see a comet,” says Kokokanekova. “If people expect to see something extremely bright in a completely dark sky, I think that if we are not lucky with the flash, it will be more complicated than it.”

But if the comet helps, it may seem much brighter. This is due to the fact that the 12p comet is known for its dramatic outbreaks, during which the ice ball loses a significant amount of material, both icy, which will undergo gas, and dust that spilled into the surrounding space. This makes the comet seem brighter, increasing the size of the fuzzy halo around it.

“He had some impressive outbreaks,” Kokokanekova tells about the 12p comet. Scientists are not yet sure what causes them, she adds – some researchers suggest that the cracks open in the ice body of the comet or that the cliffs on its potentially dentate surface are destroyed. “This is a very unknown territory,” she says. “That's why we are interested in every comet that does it.”

Whatever the cause of 12p explosions, timely, which could be turned into a 12p comet in conjunction from a thin to amazing. Nevertheless, our limited entries from previous close approaches of the comet to the Sun suggest that its outbreaks can subside when it rises closer to our star is another puzzle for scientists who can solve in the coming months.

Although General solar eclipse And Bright comets Each of the relatively rare phenomena, the 12p comet will not be the first to appear during the totality. The historian said that he discovered another comet during a complete solar eclipse, for example, that it is now Turkey in CE 418. And since in the late 1800s, observers often noticed “sunscreen” comets that take place within 850,000 miles from the star – for the eclipse. Especially noteworthy, in 1997 Comet Hale-Bopp He made his nearest approach to Earth just two weeks after a complete solar eclipse. We just need to wait a little longer to see how Comet 12p/Pons-Brooks compare.

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