CELESTIAL SPECTACLE Discovered a new comet. If the Sun does not tear it apart, we will be able to see it during the day!

It was discovered on January 13 of this year by a team of four amateur astronomers using a remote-controlled telescope in the Atacama desert. It quickly became clear that it was not a wordč about an ordinary space body, more about a member of the group known as Kreutz’s comets that move along extremely elongated paths and pass incredibly close to the Sun.

Descendant of an ancient mega-comet

What makes comet MAPS so special is its origin. Kreutz’s comets are actually fragments of a giant comet, more than a hundred kilometers in diameter, which disintegrated more than two thousand years ago, probably in the third or fourth century BC, after passing too close to the Sun.

Its parts continued to disintegrate during subsequent passes, creating a whole swarm of smaller and larger comets on similar trajectories.

Throughout history, it was the larger fragments from this family that became known as “Great Comets”. One of the most famous, the Great Comet from 1882, was at its peak brightness ča hundred times brighter than the full Moon, while Comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965 was the brightest comet of the 20th centuryćand could easily be seen with the naked eye in broad daylight.

The last major member of this family was comet Lovejoy in 2011, which barely survived its passage past the Sun and shone with the brilliance of the planet Venus.

Štoto andžoč od comet odema MAPS?

Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) moreć broke a record: at the moment of discovery, it was further from the Sun than any Kreutz comet observed so far. This fact leads astronomers to the conclusion that it could be an unusually large fragment.

The previous record holder was Ikeya-Seki, which raises hopes for a similar spectacle. However, technology has advanced considerably in the last seventy years, so it is more likely that MAPS was spotted earlier because of better instruments, and not necessarily because of its size.

The key moment will occur on April 4, when the comet will pass only 120,000 kilometers from the Sun’s surface, speeding at a speed of more than two million kilometers per hour. In doing so, it will be exposed to temperatures of several thousand degrees and enormous tidal forces that could tear it apart.

If it survives that fiery encounter, it could become a majestic sight in the evening sky in the days after it passes. There is even a possibility that it will become so bright that it will be visible even during the day.

Due to its trajectory, it will be much easier to be seen by observers in the southern hemisphere.

It is interesting that the best scenario for observations could be precisely its disintegration during the passage past the Sun, because this could cause a sudden and unexpected increase in brightness.