This video tells about the brightest comet of 2024. You will clearly see the orbit of comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS). And you will find out where to look for a long-haired guest in the sky during the period of its greatest brightness.
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) has arrived to us from the Oort cloud, the most remote region of the Solar System. If this is not its first approach to the Sun, then the previous one took place several million years ago. It was discovered in 2023 in photographs taken at a time when it was more than a billion kilometers from the Sun. Then it was found in earlier images of 2022, which made it possible to more accurately determine its orbit. The first calculations suggested that in the fall of 2024, it will be able to briefly surpass the Vega star in brightness.
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) has a retrograde orbit, that is, it moves around the Sun in the direction opposite to the motion of the planets. It will pass the perihelion point on September 27 at a minimum distance of 0.39 AU (58.6 million km) from the Sun. This distance is close to the size of the major semi-axis of Mercury’s orbit. Its maximum speed relative to the Sun will be 67.3 km/s. The comet will reach its greatest brightness (–0.21 apparent magnitude) on the night of September 30 to October 1. At this moment, it will be possible to observe it before sunrise in the constellation Leo near the constellations of Crater, Sextans and Virgo. On October 12, the comet will pass at a minimum distance of 0.47 AU (70.6 million km) from the Earth. Thus, it will be approximately in the middle between the Sun and the Earth, and its tail will be directed towards the Earth. Since mid-October, residents of the Northern Hemisphere will be able to observe the comet in the evening after sunset. But its brightness will begin to decrease rapidly, and by the end of October it will be impossible to see it with the naked eye.
The orbit of comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is very close to the parabola. Moreover, it entered the inner part of the Solar System along a closed trajectory shaped like a huge elongated ellipse. But it will leave the Solar System on an open weakly hyperbolic trajectory. This means that this comet will almost certainly never return to the Sun. It’s all the fault of gravitational disturbances from the planets, primarily the gas giants: Jupiter and Saturn. However, sudden emissions of matter from the comet’s core may make some changes to its trajectory. And there is a small chance that comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) will still remain in the Solar System.
Modeling and rendering were performed by author of this video using own software. Visualization of comet and its tail is also invented and implemented by the author of this video. The calculations took into account the mutual influence of the Sun, all the planets of the Solar System, the Moon and the comet on each other. Relativistic effects were also taken into account in the calculation. Non-gravitational effects associated with the comet nucleus matter evaporation were not taken into account.
The track Blue_moment.mp3 by Koi-discovery sounds in this video. This track was not changed. CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0 DEED) license.
