Visible to the naked eye! This phenomenon appears in the German night sky this week

Germany - Spectators will probably be able to observe the spectacle of a passing comet and its tail in the sky for several days from mid-October .

The comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas can probably be seen in the evening sky even without binoculars.
The comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas can probably be seen in the evening sky even without binoculars.  © Matthew Dominick/NASA/JSC/dpa

Tsuchinshan Atlas - also known as C/2023 A3 - will appear in the west on the evening horizon on October 10, according to the Association of Star Friends based in Bensheim in southern Hesse. Two days later at the earliest and in the following nights, the celestial body can then be seen with the naked eye or binoculars.

"Visibility with the naked eye will end around October 25, perhaps a few days later for experienced observers under a dark sky," said the chairman of Sternfreunde, Uwe Pilz, when asked by the German Press Agency.

The comet's tail will probably be visible to the naked eye in the first few days. "With binoculars in any case," said Pilz. In the first days of October until the 11th, the cosmic visitor will come closer and closer to the sun and then move in the sky towards the southwest in the following nights.

It will become fainter again.

Discovered over a year ago

The celestial body was first observed in January 2023.
The celestial body was first observed in January 2023.  © Matthew Dominick/NASA/JSC/dpa

According to the stargazers, the celestial body was first observed by an observatory in China on January 9, 2023. On the 13th of this year, the comet's orbit will reach its closest point to Earth at a distance of around 70 million kilometers - this corresponds to just under half the distance between the Earth and the Sun. From November onwards, the visitor will probably no longer be visible to the naked eye.

However, according to the House of Astronomy in Heidelberg, it is not possible to predict with complete certainty how good the observability will actually be.

The celestial body is one of the non-periodic comets that - if at all - only come close to the Earth again after long periods of time. "Tsuchinshan Atlas is unlikely to return in the foreseeable future," said the House of Astronomy. The visitor comes from the Oort Cloud, a spherical collection of objects at the outermost edge of the solar system.

The last time comet Neowise (C/2020 F3) had a brightness comparable to that of Tsuchinshan Atlas was in summer 2020. Comets have also been studied as part of space missions, for example by "Rosetta" from the European Space Agency Esa, which explored the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.