A newly discovered comet has astronomers excited, with the possibility of a spectacular sight in early April.

C/2026 A1 (MAPS) Discovered by a team of four amateur astronomers Photographed with a remotely controlled telescope in the Atacama Desert on January 13th.

It soon became clear that the newly discovered object was a member of a group called . Comet Kreuz illuminated by the sun. These include many of the brightest and most spectacular comets ever observed.

Comet MAPS is extremely long trajectory It’s orbiting the sun, diving for a fiery date with our star. In early April, the comet will pass within 120,000 km of the sun’s surface.

If the comet survives, it could become a spectacular sight in the evening sky in early April. Unless it breaks apart by then, it may become visible in broad daylight as it approaches the sun.

So what makes these sungrazers so exciting and what can you expect?

Fragment of a giant comet

Over the past 2,000 years, a series of spectacular comets They decorated our skies. Without fanfare, they appear out of nowhere and shine noticeably closer to the sun in the sky. Some of them are so bright that they can be seen even in broad daylight.

Historically, the brightest comets are often known as “great comets.” Great Comet of 1965 – C/1965 S1 (Ikeya Seki) – It was the brightest comet of the 20th century. Discovered just a month before its closest approach to the Sun, the star became as bright as a full moon and was easily visible to the naked eye during the day.

Great Comet of 1882, C/1882 R1which was even more impressive. At its brightest, it was 100 times brighter than the full moon and dazzled in the sky for several months.

We now know that all these bright comets of the past 2000 years, the Kreuzz sun-grazing comets, have a common origin. At some point in the past (probably in the 3rd or 4th century BC), the core of a huge comet, more than 100 km in diameter, came dangerously close to the surface of the Sun. Some time after its approach, far from the sun, The comet broke into two large pieces And a lot of small pieces fall out.

Hundreds of years later, in the third century AD, the fragments returned, traveling in long orbits around the sun. Report of 363 AD suggest that there may have been Multiple comets visible to the naked eye in broad daylight at the same time. The fragments that came back fragmented again.

In the 11th century, the two remaining largest fragments of the ancient giant comet passed by again; Great comets of 1106 and 1138. Once again, the debris fragmented. And the products of those fragmentations have been seen as a series of comets over the past two centuries.

A big event is planned

The comets currently grazing Kreuz’s Sun include a huge number of small comets that break apart on their way to the Sun, as well as large comets that put on a spectacular show.

NASA’s Solar Heliosphere Observatory, sohodiscovered Thousands of Kreuz pieces over the years – Small icebergs, only a few meters or tens of meters in diameter. Larger pieces rarely fly around.

The most recent large Kreuz sungrazer was observed in 2011. Queensland astronomer Terry LovejoyThe comet barely survived its approach to the Sun. By late December 2011, it was as bright as Venus..

According to the predictions of a Czech-American astronomer Zdeniek Sekanatwo large, eye-catching sungrazers could emerge within the next few decades. likely to appear within the next few years.

This comet is a sibling to the Great Comets of 1965 and 1882, and is a fragment of the Great Comet seen by Chinese observers in 1138.

Enter Comet MAPS

All this leads to the newly discovered comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS). It is moving in an orbit typical of comets that graze the Kreuz Sun, and it already holds one record. At the time of its discovery, Comet MAPS was farther from the Sun than any newly discovered sungrazer comet.

This suggests that it’s probably a larger-than-usual fragment.

This record was held by Comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965, which proved to be the brightest comet of the 20th century. However, technology has advanced significantly over the past 70 years, and it is highly unlikely that the nucleus of comet MAPS will be as large as that of Comet Ikeya-Seki. Therefore, it is unlikely that comet MAPS will be this bright.

Nevertheless, finding it so early means that it is either a fairly large piece of Kreuz, or it is currently exploding and has already disintegrated. Fortunately, recent observations have shown it to be steadily brightening, pointing to the former theory.

What can we expect from the new comet?

Overall, it’s too early to tell. If the comet survives its closest approach to the Sun (known as perihelion), which is a big hypothetical, it could put on a spectacular show in early to mid-April.

If all of this comes together, it might become so bright that it can be seen even in broad daylight. Even if that doesn’t happen, the SOHO spacecraft provides great images of a comet.

For several days after perihelion, the comet moves into the evening sky. Its orbit makes it much easier to see from the southern hemisphere, like other Comet Kreuzz.

Related: Alien comet 3I/ATLAS is about to approach Earth

If a comet survives to perihelion and breaks up as it passes the Sun, it can suddenly and unexpectedly brighten. So a late breakup could be the best-case scenario for the dazzling show.

For now, we will watch and wait.

Jonty HornerProfessor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

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