Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) with "Anti-Tail" over Arizona

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) with "Anti-Tail" over Arizona

On October 14, 2024, it was challenging to capture a full view of Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. Taken after the comet's closest approach to our planet, this evening skyview almost does it. With two telephoto frames combined, the image stretches about 26 degrees across the sky from top to bottom, looking west from Gates Pass, Tucson, Arizona. Due to the Earth crossing the comet's orbital plane, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS also has a pronounced antitail. The antitail is composed of dust previously released and fanning out away from the Sun along the comet's orbit. It is visible as a needle-like extension below the bright coma toward the rugged western horizon.

C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is a comet from the solar system's Oort cloud discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory east of Nanjing, China, on January 9, 2023, and independently found by the automated Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in South Africa on February 22, 2023. ATLAS is funded by NASA's planetary defense office, and developed and operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. C/2023 A3 passed perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) at a distance of 0.39 AU (58 million km; 36 million miles) on September 27, 2024.

The Oort cloud is theorized to be a vast cloud of icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 AU (0.03 to 3.2 light-years). The concept of such a cloud was proposed in 1950 by the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, in whose honor the idea was named. Oort proposed that the bodies in this cloud replenish and keep constant the number of long-period comets entering the inner Solar System—where they are eventually consumed and destroyed during close approaches to the Sun.

Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block

Adam's website: www.adamblockphotos.com

Caption Credit: NASA

Release Date: Oct. 18, 2024

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