Rare Green Comet to Grace Night Skies, Discovered by Czech Astronomer
A newly discovered comet, boasting a striking green hue and a lengthy tail, is rapidly approaching earth and will soon be visible to observers. The celestial visitor, designated Comet 3i/Atlas, was first captured in images by Czech astronomer Petr Mašek using the robotic Fram telescope located in Chile.
The discovery marks a meaningful moment for the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and offers a rare chance for both professional and amateur astronomers to witness a possibly impressive cosmic event. While comets pose a theoretical long-term risk to Earth due to their speed and unpredictable trajectories – a collision could have catastrophic consequences – the likelihood of impact from Comet 3i/Atlas is extremely low, estimated at roughly once every 45 million years. However,the comet’s brightness and visibility provide valuable data for scientists studying these icy bodies and their composition.
“I was surprised to see such a bright comet with a very long tail,” Mašek stated. According to colleagues, the comet appeared as the brightest object observed through the Soho observatory.
Comets are primarily composed of ice and dust, differentiating them from asteroids. Their high speeds and erratic paths make them a greater, though still improbable, threat to Earth. As an example, the 1997 passage of Comet Hale-Bopp demonstrated the potential for a devastating impact, estimated to be forty times greater than that of the Chicxulub asteroid believed to have contributed to the extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
Data about comets can be found at Space and NASA.
