The discovery of a new comet that may be seen with...

Citizen – Mohammed Daoud – Jeddah

In early August 2021, he announced the discovery of a new comet, which is likely to become visible to the naked eye by April 2022, according to the information available about the comet so far.

Panstars is named after the telescope:

The head of the Jeddah Astronomical Society, Majed Abu Zahira, said: The new comet was named Pan Stars after the 1.8-meter Pan Stars telescope located at the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii, which first observed this comet on July 26, 2021, indicating that the luminosity of the comet at the moment of its discovery was It is +20, which means that it is very faint, and it was in front of the stars of Pegasus, and it is moving in an extremely elongated elliptical orbit and probably belongs to long-period comets, and at the present time, the comet is a small object – about several arc seconds – and lacks the presence of a tail.

In 2022 it will reach rock bottom:

He pointed out that currently, the comet – Pan Stars – is considered invisible even by telescopes and can hardly be seen, however, if it survives from perihelion – the closest distance from the sun – the comet may become visible with the naked eye or at least be observed with binoculars, and the comet will reach Panstars to Perigee on April 20, 2022, and it will be at a distance of 0.29 astronomical units 43,383,383 km from the sun – near Mercury – and at about the same time it is expected that its maximum brightness will be around (+5), and on May 8, 2022, while the comet will reach its closest point to Earth on A distance of 0.6 astronomical units (89,758,722 km), and at that time it is expected that its brightness will decrease to (6.8), but it remains within the limits of vision with the naked eye.

Seeing better in the northern half:

Abu Zahira added that in general, the vision of the comet – Pan Stars – will be better in the northern hemisphere, as it will be visible starting from the second half of April 2022, and in late April and May, the comet will move in front of the star groups: Aries, Taurus, Perseus and Giraffe, and on May 2 2022, the opportunity to observe a unique event is the meeting of the crescent moon, Mercury, and the comet Panstars, which will meet simultaneously near the Pleiades star cluster; They can be seen together in the field of view of telescopes with a field of view of 11 degrees, and it must be taken into account that comets cannot accurately predict their behavior, especially the predictions of brightness, as it is possible for its brightness to increase suddenly and become very bright and to be easily observed with the naked eye and from within cities in the night sky , as happened with Comet Holmes in 2007 and may be less than expected.

Share the news