Your once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a green comet named C/2021 A1 — a.k.a. Leonard — is here. Astronomy experts, including the comet’s discoverer, offer tips on when and how to see the comet.
What is Comet C/2021 A1?
Like other comets, Leonard is a ball of frozen gas, rocks and dust. When its orbit brings it close to the sun, the heat causes some of that material to vapourize, which makes it glow and sprout a tail of gas and dust.
Why is this comet causing so much excitement?
While many comets pass through our solar system, few come close enough to the sun or the Earth for us to see them.
This week, it may be possible to see Leonard even without binoculars, the experts said.
“Brighter comets are rare, so it’s definitely worth making an effort to see them,” said Chris Vaughan, an operator at the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill, Ont., and a volunteer with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Vaughan recently posted about Comet Leonard on his Astronomy Skylights blog.
<a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Astronomy?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Astronomy</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Skylights?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Skylights</a> for this week, with worldwide content. Clear skies! (image from Gregg Ruppel) <a href=”https://t.co/XmLG81QCth”>https://t.co/XmLG81QCth</a> <a href=”https://t.co/d58Jkl3OL7″>pic.twitter.com/d58Jkl3OL7</a>
Leonard’s discoverer, Greg Leonard, has discovered 13 comets, but said this one feels “like hitting the celestial jackpot,” because of how visible it will be.
“It’s a real dream come true and it’s very, very humbling,” he told CBC’s As It Happens on Dec. 2.
When is the best time to see the comet?
Right now, the comet is visible in the Northern Hemisphere in the eastern sky to people using binoculars from anywhere in Canada in the early morning, he said.
It’s expected to get brighter and closer to the horizon every morning until Saturday, Dec. 11.
Amazing timelapse of comet leonard! <a href=”https://t.co/oZWq3WhbF0″>https://t.co/oZWq3WhbF0</a>
For those who want to see the comet, Vaughan recommends going out in the early morning over the next couple of days, if the sky is clear. He said an area away from city lights, with a clear view of the horizon to the east, would offer the best view. By returning on subsequent mornings, you should be able to notice the change, he said.
If the weather co-operates, Friday and Saturday mornings around 6 a.m. may be the best bets for a good view. At that point, Vaughan said, Leonard should still be high enough that it won’t be blocked by trees and houses or distorted by the atmosphere.
On Sunday, Dec. 12, the comet should make its closest approach to Earth, then disappear the next day for Northern Hemisphere viewers.
It’s expected to return Monday after sunset, as it heads away from the Earth toward the sun, getting fainter over the following weeks.
“But it’ll never get very high above the horizon,” Vaughan said. “The pre-dawn is your best chance [for viewing], the next few days.”
How can you find it in the night sky?
It will be in the eastern sky below and to the left of the bright star Arcturus in the constellation Bootes.
This map of the sky at 6 a.m. (no matter where you are in Canada) shows where to look for Comet Leonard this week. It’s based on a diagram created by Chris Vaughan with the software Stellarium for his blog Astronomy Skylights on his website, AstroGeo. (CBC News)
Justin Anderson, an astro-photographer who lives north of Brandon, Man., managed to capture the comet earlier this week, and said he plans to keep going out to take more photos.
He said he uses mobile apps such as Star Walk and Stellarium that allow you to point your phone up at the sky, show a map of the stars in that region and pinpoint where the comet is expected to be.
“With binoculars, it was pretty difficult to find it, just because the tail is quite dim,” Anderson said.
It’s easier to find with a camera, he said, which is more sensitive to faint objects than our eyes. The camera doesn’t need to be fancy, Anderson said, although zooming in may help.
“Put your camera in that direction and take a photo if you don’t see it,” he said. “You might have to move it a little bit more and take another photo until you do see it. But it is very green on the camera, and you do see a little bit of a tail behind it.”
Pretty excited to have captured a meteor beside <a href=”https://twitter.com/Comet2021a1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@Comet2021a1</a> last night! <br>This is a deepscape image at 85mm. <br>Sky: <br>Single 30s, f/3.5, ISO 2000<br><br>Foreground: <br>20 x ISO 12,800, f/3.5, 4s <a href=”https://t.co/VTJapnV1lW”>pic.twitter.com/VTJapnV1lW</a>
As of Dec. 7, Leonard was 46.25 million kilometres away, with a brightness magnitude of 6.9. It will need to reach a magnitude between four and five to be visible in rural areas, Vaughan said,which it is predicted to do this weekend.
The @cometleonard Twitter account provides regular updates on the comet’s magnitude.
I am 46.25 million km away from Earth. You can spot me near the Bootes constellation. My current magnitude is 6.9, so I am NOT VISIBILE to the naked eye yet<a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/comet?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#comet</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/cometc2021a1?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#cometc2021a1</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/cometLEONARD?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#cometLEONARD</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/C2021A1?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#C2021A1</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/FollowTheComet?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#FollowTheComet</a>
Magnitude five is dimmer than last year’s Comet NEOWISE, which topped out between magnitude one and two, similar to the North Star, Polaris.
But no one knows if Comet Leonard will follow predictions.
“The only thing consistent about comets is their unpredictability,” said Greg Leonard. “And a famous comet hunter once said comets are like cats. Both have tails and both do precisely what they want.”
Where did Comet Leonard get its name?
Comets are generally named after their discoverers. Greg Leonard works for the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona in Tucson, hunting and tracking near-Earth asteroids.
“On occasion, we stumble into an unknown comet,” he told CBC.
This is actually not the only Comet Leonard. Greg Leonard has discovered 12 other comets — all called Leonard.
But they all have different years, letters and numbers attached.
Greg Leonard poses with the Catalina Sky Survey Telescope, used to find near-Earth asteroids. While doing that, he has found 13 comets, all named after him, including Comet Leonard C/2021a1. (C. Scherer)
On Jan. 3, C/2021 A1 became the first comet discovered this year. The “A” means it was found in the first half of January.
Why do we only get one chance to see it?
Comet Leonard is expected to pass by once and never again.
The comet formed about 4.5 billion years ago and comes from about 550 billion kilometres away, or 3,700 times the distance between the sun and the Earth.
“It’s been inbound toward the inner solar system for the past 35,000 years,” Leonard said.
It’s zooming through space at 70 kilometres per second, he said. “That’s enough speed for it to get flung away from our solar system.”
It may arrive in some other star system millions and millions of years from now.
In the meantime, “just appreciate that this beautiful celestial object is up in the sky,” Leonard said.
“I sure wish everybody clear skies and the opportunity to have a look and see it for themselves.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
