ATLANTA — By way of the weekend of Saturday, Oct. 19 and Sunday, Oct. 20, you can see a uncommon comet within the sky every night above north Georgia.

Comet C/2023 A3, referred to as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, will probably be seen every night about half-hour after sundown and might be seen within the western sky.

RELATED: 2 comets may be seen within the night time sky

A number of 11Alive Climate Influence Neighborhood members noticed the comet over north Georgia on Sunday night, October 13. Invoice Honea snapped the picture under from Newnan.

Additionally, on Sunday night, Neal McEwen despatched a fantastic picture! 

And out in Bowdon, Nicolette LaRue Agan captured this picture simply after sundown on Sunday.

The earlier, the higher! Later within the week, the comet will seem greater and dimmer within the sky. 

Every night, look within the western sky about half-hour after sundown. It’s best to spot it simply.

This week will probably be largely clear and chilly every night, as a fall airmass takes maintain of north Georgia. This can assist to maintain cloud cowl at a minimal general.

Georgia Tech professor and planetary astronomer Dr. James Wray defined the comet’s origins to our sister station, WCNC.

“The human thoughts could discover it troublesome to conceptualize: a cosmic cloud so colossal it surrounds the Solar and eight planets because it extends trillions of miles into deep area,” Wray wrote within the report. “The spherical shell referred to as the Oort Cloud is, for all sensible functions, invisible. Its constituent particles are unfold so thinly, and so removed from the sunshine of any star, together with the Solar, that astronomers merely can not see the cloud, though it envelops us like a blanket.”

Within the report, Wray additionally wrote: 

It’s also theoretical. Astronomers infer the Oort Cloud is there as a result of it’s the one logical rationalization for the arrival of a sure class of comets that sporadically go to our photo voltaic system. The cloud, it seems, is mainly a big reservoir which will maintain billions of icy celestial our bodies.

Two of these our bodies will go by Earth within the days main as much as Halloween. Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, also referred to as Comet C/2023 A3, will probably be at its brightest, and sure seen to the bare eye, for per week or two after Oct. 12, the day it’s closest to Earth – simply look to the western sky shortly after sundown. As the times go, the comet will get fainter and transfer to the next a part of the sky.

The second comet, C/2024 S1 (ATLAS), simply found on Sept. 27, must be seen across the finish of October. The comet will go closest to Earth on Oct. 24 – look low within the japanese sky simply earlier than dawn. Then, after swinging across the Solar, the comet could reappear within the western night time sky proper round Halloween. It’s doable, nonetheless, that it may disintegrate, partially or in complete, as typically occurs when comets go by the Solar – and this one will come inside 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) of our star.

You possibly can learn extra of Wray’s write up on the Oort Cloud and Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS on-line right here.