The total solar eclipse in April 2024 was the center of astronomical attention, while comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, sometimes called the “Devil Comet,” was in its closest approach to Earth in seventy-one years.
This unusual comet is frequently referred to as a “cosmic snowball” by NASA.
A comet’s composition consists of dust, rock, and ice. It travels around the sun in a very elliptical path, spending years in the solar system’s depths before making its way back.
Comets vary in size, sometimes being as little as 3 miles in width but not getting much more significant than 6 miles wide.
The relatively brilliant appearance of Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is known as perihelion brightness. Its orbit brings it into close view with Earth around once every 71 years. Its frequent trips back to the inner solar system make it similar to Halley’s Comet, another short-period comet.
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks was dubbed the “Devil Comet” in July 2023 because of its horn-shaped characteristics and asymmetrical structure that was displayed during an outburst—an event where the comet brightens. The outburst produced approximately one hundred times the comet’s average luminosity. According to astronomers, the horn-like formations might be the consequence of shadow effects as seen from Earth or of uneven gas and dust ejection.
From the Northern Hemisphere, the comet was visible during the spring of 2024, when the solar eclipse was happening. Once the sun had dipped below the horizon, it was best viewed via binoculars or a little telescope. The comet was too dim to be visible in July.
Sunday, April 21, 2024, was Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks’s brightest appearance from Earth in seventy-one years. The comet passed the point in its orbit when it was at its closest approach to the sun, known as perihelion.
Despite its sinister moniker, the comet poses no danger to Earth. In its journey out of the inner solar system, it passes between Venus’s and Earth’s orbits.
