Will Comet Leonard be the Brightest Comet of the Year?

C/2021 A1 (Leonard), a much-anticipated comet, is expected to be the greatest and brightest comet of 2021 by the end of the year. The comet is now moving toward the sun, approaching its perihelion (closest approach to the sun) on January 3, 2022.

The comet has been approaching both the sun and Earth since its detection by astronomer Greg Leonard in January 2021, but it has been a very faint entity. And Leonard has traveled a long distance to arrive in time for the holidays.

Comets

Comets circle the Sun like cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust. They are the size of a sizable town when frozen. When a comet approaches the Sun, it warms up and spews dust and gases into a massive blazing head the size of most planets. The dust and gases generate a tail that reaches millions of kilometers away from the Sun. The Kuiper Belt and beyond the Oort Cloud are presumably home to billions of comets circling our Sun.

Comet Leonard

According to Space.com, the comet was 3,500 astronomical units from the sun at the end of its elongated elliptical orbit - or aphelion - roughly 35,000 years ago. The Earth's average distance from the sun is 92,955,807 miles, equal to one astronomical unit (AU) (149,565,894 kilometers).

So, 35 millennia ago, Comet Leonard was 325 billion miles (525 billion kilometers) from the sun, engulfed in an almost impossibly frigid environment, hanging just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero, the temperature at which all molecular motion comes to a halt.

Now that Comet Leonard is nearing the end of what will most likely be its final encounter with the sun, its ice gases like methane, ammonia, and water vapor are reacting to the sun's growing warmth.

Glowing Bright

Although comets are notoriously difficult to anticipate, NASA predicts Comet Leonard will brighten and become visible to the naked eye in the second week of December.

Look toward the eastern sky on the morning of December 6, approximately two hours before dawn. You'll spot Arcturus, a dazzling orange-yellow star in the constellation of Boötes the Herdsman, right away.

Looking down the handle of the Big Dipper away from its spout, arcing to the brilliant orange star Arcturus, forming the base of the constellation Boötes, which some people mistake for a kite, is a straightforward approach to discover the constellation.

Visibility

Scanning the sky roughly 5 degrees to the left of Arcturus with a cheap pair of regular 1050 binoculars should reveal Comet Leonard. The comet's dust tail, which began to grow dramatically in early November, should be practically straight up.

The morning visibility of Comet Leonard will finish on December 12, although it will make many "cameo appearances" in the evening sky. It will be 5° below brilliant Venus on December 17. Look for it around an hour after sunset using binoculars, extremely low near the southwest horizon.

Also Read: NASA Plans to Deflect Asteroids to Defend the Planet from Cosmic Disaster

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Tags comet, asteroid, Meteor, astronomy