How to spot a once-in-a-lifetime green comet: Space rock, dubbed the ‘Mother of Dragons’, is now visible in the night sky – now’s the best time to spot it before it hits again 70 years disappears
Before Monday’s solar eclipse, eagle-eyed skygazers will have the unique opportunity to see a rare green comet, the ‘Mother of Dragons,’ in the night sky.
According to astronomers, Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks will be visible at night from the Northern Hemisphere in early April.
It’s bigger than Mount Everest and should appear as a green blob with a fuzzy tail on its first visit to the inner solar system in 71 years.
To see Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, look west in the night sky and find the constellation known as Aries the Aries, which forms a loose V-shape.
In the coming weeks it will continue to move west towards Orion, the constellation that resembles the great mythical hunter.
To see Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, look west in the night sky and find the constellation Aries the Aries, which forms a loose V-shape. In the coming weeks it will continue to move west towards Orion, the constellation that resembles the great mythical hunter
Amateur astronomers have already taken pictures of the comet with specialized telescopes. This image is a three-color composite, with the comet’s ever-changing ion tail shown in light blue and the outer coma in green, and some red-hot gas spiraling around the coma highlighted. The spiral is believed to be caused by gas being ejected from the slowly rotating core of the object
“The comet can now be found in the constellation Aries, visible in the early evening, to the west,” Gregory Brown, astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, told MailOnline.
‘It only becomes visible after dusk and sets around 10pm BST.
‘Although it may be possible to see with the naked eye, it is best to try to observe with binoculars or a small telescope.’
The audience should look for what appears to be “an irregularly shaped dirty snowball,” or a faint star-like blob with a blurry tail and a green tint.
It appears green due to the presence of a molecule called dicarbon, which emits a greenish glow in sunlight.
At this point, it is getting closer to the Sun and Earth as it is pulled by the gravity of our star.
On April 21, it will come within 72.5 million miles (116.8 million km) of the sun, while on June 2 it will make a close approach to Earth of 144 million miles (232 million km).
Photographer Josh Dury photographed 12P/Pons-Brooks on March 6 from Compton Martin in the Mendip Hills, Somerset
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is one of the brightest known periodic comets, with an orbital period of 71 years – meaning the chance to see this object is rare
Composite image of Comet 12/Pons-Brooks, taken at Kendal, Cumbria by Stuart Atkinson, Saturday 16 March 2024
The comet abruptly brightened almost a hundredfold on October 31 and continued to brighten over the following days. It was the second eruption of 12P/Pons-Brooks in a calendar month, and the third since July. Here it is pictured on July 27, 2023, a week after its first eruption
But by then it will be too late to look in the Northern Hemisphere, said Jessica Lee, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
“From June, after the comet passes the sun, it will only be visible to observers in the southern hemisphere,” she told MailOnline.
“It will become fainter and fainter as it travels to the outer solar system and will not approach Earth again until 2095.”
12P/Pons-Brooks is what is known as a cryovolcanic – or cold volcano – comet, meaning it exhibits volcanic activity.
But instead of spewing molten rock and lava like a volcano on Earth, a cryovolcanic comet releases a mixture of gases and ice.
When a cryovolcanic comet approaches the Sun – as 12P/Pons-Brooks is doing now – it heats up and builds up pressure in its core.
The pressure continues to build until nitrogen and carbon monoxide explode, hurling icy debris out through large cracks in the core’s shell.
These gas streams can take on distinctive shapes when viewed through a telescope, such as devil horns, also described as a horseshoe or the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.
Some have speculated that the horseshoe-like shape also resembles the Millennium Falcon spaceship from Star Wars
12P/Pons-Brooks is what is known as a cryovolcanic – or cold volcano – comet, meaning it exhibits volcanic activity. But instead of spewing molten rock and lava like a volcano on Earth, a cryovolcanic comet releases a mixture of gases and ice. According to an astronomer, the comet erupted on October 31 – the second time in a calendar month
Sketches of Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks from January 21 and 22, 1884 during one of its rare periods of visibility
Like planets, comets in our solar system orbit the sun because they are attracted by the sun’s enormous gravity.
It takes 12P/Pons-Brooks 71 years to complete an orbit around the Sun, but this is relatively short compared to the orbit length of most orbits, which take thousands of years.
Comets tend to have very ‘elliptical’ orbits, meaning they are elongated and not perfectly circular.
These elliptical orbits take them very close to the Sun at one point in their orbit (perihelion) and very far away from the Sun at another point (aphelion).
As with all celestial bodies, the closer comets are to the sun, the faster they move.
12P/Pons-Brooks is currently hurtling towards the sun – and therefore towards Earth – at a speed of more than 40,000 miles per hour (20 km per second).
But this could increase to more than 100,000 miles per hour as it gets closer to the Sun, known as perihelion.
After the space rock comes closest to us, it is thrown back by gravity to the outer solar system and will not return until 2095.