An explosive comet – dubbed the Devil Comet because it grew gaseous horns – can be seen in the sky at night this month.
Also known as 12P/Pons-Brooks, the cryovolcanic ‘ice volcano’ comet is completing its 71-year elliptical orbit around the sun. It will be visible to most people on Earth for much of March.
The comet is several miles wide, says NASA. As it got closer to the sun, solar radiation split open its icy shell and it erupted ice and gas.
It’s these explosive eruptions that created the horns which give the comet its demonic nickname. However, these horns now seem to have disappeared, following more recent eruptions, reports space.com.
Instead, it has developed an eerie and relatively rare green glow. This has been caused by high levels of dicarbon in its tail and coma – a nebulous envelope around a comet’s nucleus formed when it passes near the Sun.
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The comet has now had at least four eruptions, after exploding for the first time in 69 years back in July 2023, reports LiveScience. It exploded twice more in October, including one – aptly, given its nickname – on Halloween.
This series of eruptions left 12P with an irregular coma resembling a pair of horns. However, these appear to have ‘fallen off’ after its largest eruption, on November 14.
“The coma seems perfectly circular this time,” Nick James, director of the British Astronomical Associations’s (BAA) comet section, told Spaceweather.com.
It should be visible to the naked eye by the end of March. A Nasa spokesperson said: “You can find it low in the west-northwest part of the sky at the end of evening twilight.”
However, if you miss it, the comet will be back again in just a few weeks – after looping around the sun. And it will make its closest approach to Earth on June 2, says space.com.
