Comet C/2024 G3 ATLAS over Chile

Comet C/2024 G3 ATLAS over Chile

Astrophotographer Yuri Beletsky: "Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) has finally arrived in the Southern Sky! 🤩 It's clearly visible as a very bright object shortly after sunset. Although the tail is still quite short, the comet is truly beautiful. For planning the composition, I used Planit Pro."

C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) is a non-periodic comet. It reached perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on January 13, 2025, at a distance of 0.09 AU (13 million km) from the Sun. It is potentially the brightest comet of 2025, with an apparent magnitude reaching −3.8 on the day of its perihelion. The comet is visible in the southern hemisphere before and after perihelion. It can only be observed in the daytime sky around perihelion in the northern hemisphere.

Comet C/2024 G3 was found by the automated Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on April 5, 2024, in images obtained with a 0.5-m reflector telescope located in Río Hurtado, Chile. ATLAS is funded by NASA's planetary defense office, and developed and operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy.

Image Credit: Yuri Beletsky
Yuri's website: https://www.instagram.com/yuribeletsky/
Image Date: Jan. 16, 2025 

Location: European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory, Chile, South America

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