New promising comet discovered

The new comet C/2023 A3 travels still between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, but may become a jewel in the sky in September 2024. Foto: SkySafari Pro

A new comet has been discovered that has some promising potential. It is named C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) and was discovered by both the Purple Mountain Observatory (Zijin Shin or Tsuchinshan) in China, as well the ATLAS survey in Hawaii. It is still very far away, somewhere between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. According to current calculations it will reach its closest approach to the Sun in September 2024. So that is still almost a 1.5 year wait. But current predictions also indicated that there is a potential that the comet may eventually reach magnitude 0. In comparison, the recent comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) reached a maximum brightness of around magnitude 5. The latest naked-eye visible comet was C/2020 F3 Neowise, which reached peak brightness between magnitude 0.5-1.