![\"Angus](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/d5a071fc159539ad13208393627832b1baa469f341946cfd0567ba332a83005c.png\")
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Australians will have their only chance to spy a newly discovered blue-green comet scorching past Earth during the next fortnight \u2013 coinciding with the flashy peak of a meteor shower \u2013 before the cosmic visitor fires off into deep space.<\/p>\n The comet was found last September and has shown off to northern hemisphere stargazers for the past few weeks, before it slingshotted around the sun in late April and soared into our view.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m getting a tail that\u2019s about 10 degrees long, beautifully running up into Orion,\u201d said Professor Jonti Horner, an astronomer who has had his camera aimed at the comet as it skates towards the chin of the Witch Head Nebula.<\/p>\n The comet, C\/2025 R3 PanSTARRS, originated from the Oort cloud, an enormous reservoir of trillions of icy interstellar rock chunks fringing the outermost edge of the sun\u2019s gravity.<\/p>\n Every so often, one of the objects peels away and becomes a comet, a \u201cdirty snowball\u201d blasting past the sun and releasing a streaked tail of dust and plasma.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how C\/2025 R3 PanSTARRS came to brighten the Australian horizon until about May 10.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is our only chance to see it because it\u2019s been nudged by the planets as it\u2019s come through, so it will never return,\u201d Horner, from the University of Southern Queensland, said. \u201cIt is being ejected from the solar system utterly and entirely, which means that it will go to float among the stars forevermore.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not uncommon to find new comets, but most are 10,000 to 100,000 times too dim to see without serious telescopic firepower.<\/p>\n \u201cYou tend to get one comet per year that will tease the edge of naked-eye visibility, and this is one of those,\u201d Horner said, although the comet has passed its brightest point and will probably only be visible through binoculars, a camera or telescope.<\/p>\n How to spot the comet<\/p>\n The comet is best spotted just after sunset once it\u2019s dark, but it will set below the horizon by 9pm (AEST), offering a limited viewing window.<\/p>\n Aspiring comet-hunters should look west, to Orion\u2019s belt, made of three bright stars in a line. The bright red star Betelgeuse lies to the right and the bright blue star Rigel is to the left.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Drop towards the horizon from Rigel and you\u2019ll find the comet.<\/p>\n \u201cIt should be quite obvious because all of the stars that you\u2019re seeing will be sharp points,\u201d Horner said, while the comet will have a smudgy tail.<\/p>\n The comet may have a blue-green hue in photos \u2013 generated by cyanogen and carbon gas \u2013 but probably won\u2019t give off enough light for the cone cells in our eyes to pick up colour.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the perfect object to catch with binoculars or astrophotography, ideally with an SLR, although Horner said some people had luck snapping photos of the comet with their smartphones.<\/p>\n What\u2019s in a name?<\/p>\n Comets are named after the year and fortnight of their discovery, and the telescope which spotted them.<\/p>\n The \u201cC\u201d in C\/2025 R3 PanSTARRS\u2019s name refers to the fact it\u2019s a \u201cnon-periodic\u201d or \u201clong-period\u201d comet, as opposed to a comet with a regular or \u201cperiodic\u201d orbit like Halley\u2019s Comet (which would be denoted with a \u201cP\u201d).<\/p>\n Next comes the year it was first spotted, 2025.<\/p>\n Then comes a letter which denotes the fortnight of the comet\u2019s discovery. The first fortnight of January is A, the second is B, and so on. This comet was found in the first fortnight of September, denoted by \u201cR\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was the third comet discovered in that fortnight, hence the next number, \u201c3\u201d.<\/p>\n The comet was discovered by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (PanSTARRS), a network of telescopes and astronomical cameras in Hawaii constantly scanning the sky for comets and near-Earth asteroids.<\/p>\n Put it all together and you get C\/2025 R3 PanSTARRS. Catchy!<\/p>\n Meteors for early birds<\/p>\n For pre-dawn stargazers, Thursday morning will offer peak views of the Eta Aquariids.<\/p>\n The annual meteor shower occurs as Earth passes through the dusty trail left behind by Halley\u2019s Comet, which circles the sun and will be visible next in 2061.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s show may not be worth getting up for, though. A very bright waxing gibbous moon will drown out many of the smaller flashes.<\/p>\n \u201cThat means that the number of Eta Aquariids you\u2019d see per hour this year will be down compared to last year by a factor of three or four times,\u201d Horner said.<\/p>\n For those up between 3am and dawn, it\u2019s worth training an eye on the sky and catching the odd spectacular streak.<\/p>\n \u201cIf people really want to see a good meteor shower, my advice is always wait until December because the Geminids are the best shower of the year, much better than the Eta Aquariids and the moon is going to be perfect for them,\u201d Horner said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also an excellent time to admire Venus, the brightest thing in the western night sky. \u201cIt looks like an aircraft coming with its headlights on low,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jupiter will inch down towards Venus until they dance in a conjunction, when two planets move very close to each other, on June 10.<\/p>\n Related Article Rounding out this month\u2019s cosmic extravaganza is a blue micromoon on May 31.<\/p>\n A blue moon isn\u2019t actually blue \u2013 it\u2019s just the name of the second full moon in one month; a lunar double-act that only happens about once every two and a half years.<\/p>\n This month\u2019s event will be a micromoon, which means it\u2019ll be full when the moon is at its \u201capogee\u201d furthest from Earth \u2013 the opposite of a supermoon.<\/p>\n The Examine newsletter explains and analyses science with a rigorous focus on the evidence. Sign up to get it each week<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/33a5b6f7d4bae8a884c0d1df6fb8bef183b2270f2fbc55e107b9664751782a16.jpeg\")
C\/2025 R3 PanSTARRS, captured above from Crete in April, is now visible in Australian skies.Wikimedia<\/p>\n![\"Comet](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0dcf83f3e8b5c44354d34594df9c1fa692f6fe3a.jpeg\")
Comet C\/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan\u2013ATLAS) was a rare comet \u2013 also from the Oort cloud \u2013 visible with the naked eye in 2024 skies.AP<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/76c13a68c09f476f54745cbf9867017deefe993c.jpeg\")
A composite of more than 100 meteors during 2014\u2019s Geminid shower, set to return in December.NASA\/MSFC\/Danielle Moser, NASA\u2019s Meteoroid Environment Office<\/p>\n![\"University](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/d1cc3881153f5cb06b1fcf5dbe35d6eb95d7e21766a29108911e20629c1627ab.jpeg\")
University of Southern Queensland astrophysicist Professor Jonti Horner.<\/p>\n![\"3I\/Atlas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/794296c7aa64da0fbd378bd69caf57ef5f01183793ecf3bc2ed68e0b1131afc3.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Angus](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769508917_386_d5a071fc159539ad13208393627832b1baa469f341946cfd0567ba332a83005c.png\")
Angus Dalton<\/a> is the science reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-652780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}