Observers have already spotted a comet that could be the brightest of the year with the use of binoculars. Currently just a tiny fleck of light sputtering in space, the newly discovered comet is expected to grow brighter in the coming days.
As Comet ATLAS C/2024 G3 traverses its gargantuan 160,000-year orbit to reach perihelion—its point nearest to the sun—astronomers expect it could become the brightest comet of 2025.
On Jan. 13, the comet that was first discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on April 5, 2024, will come within 13.5 million kilometres of our closest star. That might seem a great distance, but bear in mind Earth’s distance from the sun is 150 million kilometres, or 1 astronomical unit (AU)….