Confirmed: Comet ATLAS has broken apart
Astronomers have now confirmed the fact that Comet ATLAS has broken into several pieces, and will not put on a spectacular sky show this coming May.
Just a month ago, it looked like the icy wanderer, officially known as C/2019 Y4 Atlas, might put on a dazzling sky show around the time of its closest approach to the sun, or perihelion, which occurs on May 31.
But relatively lackluster behavior soon dimmed such hopes. And optimism surrounding the comet is now pretty much extinguished, for it’s no longer in one piece. Comet Atlas “has shattered both its and our hearts,” astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, the founder and director of the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy, said in an emailed statement on Sunday (April 12). “Its nucleus disintegrated, and last night I could see three, possibly four main fragments.”
A nice picture of the break-up can be seen here.
We are due for another great comet, like Comet Hale-Bopp in the late 1990s. Unfortunately, Comet ATLAS won’t be that comet.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Astronomers have now confirmed the fact that Comet ATLAS has broken into several pieces, and will not put on a spectacular sky show this coming May.
Just a month ago, it looked like the icy wanderer, officially known as C/2019 Y4 Atlas, might put on a dazzling sky show around the time of its closest approach to the sun, or perihelion, which occurs on May 31.
But relatively lackluster behavior soon dimmed such hopes. And optimism surrounding the comet is now pretty much extinguished, for it’s no longer in one piece. Comet Atlas “has shattered both its and our hearts,” astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, the founder and director of the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy, said in an emailed statement on Sunday (April 12). “Its nucleus disintegrated, and last night I could see three, possibly four main fragments.”
A nice picture of the break-up can be seen here.
We are due for another great comet, like Comet Hale-Bopp in the late 1990s. Unfortunately, Comet ATLAS won’t be that comet.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I don’t think the comet swan is that either, at least we didn’t have to wait long for the next one. Only visible from the southern hemisphere though.
https://spaceweather.com/
Just felt another earthquake while I was writing this, second aftershock in two days.