Stargazers may soon be in for a spectacle, as astronomers and researchers who have been observing a particular comet believe it has the potential of being the brightest comet in the last 50 years.
Come Nov. 28, we could well witness the skies being lit up by the comet C/2012 S1, colloquially known as comet ISON. The comet is expected to pass by Earth toward the end of this year and could possibly be the brightest comet in the last five decades.
"Comet ISON has the potential to be among the brightest comets of the last 50 years, which gives us a rare opportunity to observe its changes in great detail and over an extended period," said Lead Investigator Dennis Bodewits, an astronomer at University of Maryland at College Park.
Researchers and astronomers at the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP) and Lowell Observatory have been observing the comet ISON using NASA's Swift satellite. The team tracked the celestial body over the course of the past two months while scanning for powerful explosions in the universe. Swift enabled astronomers to learn details about the comet, such as its size, speed and how fast it's spewing gas and dust.
The satellite helped astronomers determine how much ice is on the comet.
"Using images acquired over the last two months from Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT), the team has made initial estimates of the comet's water and dust production and used them to infer the size of its icy nucleus," notes a NASA report.
Astronomers have a keen interest in Comet ISON as it has come precariously close to the sun, which in turn has made it brighter, as the heat from the star sublimated the comet's icy nucleus. This releases dust in the process, which reflects sunlight and glows as a result.
Moreover, what makes ISON unique is that it will graze past Mars and then come extremely close to the sun. The comet, aka "dirty snowball," is essentially a "clump of frozen gases mixed with dust." This kind of comet emits gas and dust, which turns icy material from a solid to a gaseous state, resulting in a beautiful tail that trails behind the comet.
"On Nov. 28, ISON will make a sweltering passage around the sun. The comet will approach within about 730,000 miles (1.2 million km) of its visible surface, which classifies ISON as a sungrazing comet," says NASA.
Based on the amount of gas emitted by ISON, it is estimated that the "sungrazing" comet's nucleus is 3 miles in diameter. On Dec. 26, it will "swing past Earth" approaching nearly 39.9 million miles or "about 167 times farther than the moon."
