{"id":222406,"date":"2026-01-01T22:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T22:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/222406\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T22:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T22:43:11","slug":"start-2026-by-spotting-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-in-the-sky-use-our-chart-to-help-you-find-it-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/222406\/","title":{"rendered":"Start 2026 by spotting interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS in the sky. Use our chart to help you find it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Comet 3I\/ATLAS is a rare interstellar visitor, a comet not gravitationally bound to any star, and only the third such object ever identified.<\/p>\n<p>When <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/3i-atlas-discovery\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System<\/a> (ATLAS) survey in Rio Hurtado, Chile, on 1 July 2025, it was 670 million km from the Sun, technically within the inner Solar System.<\/p>\n<p>Its closest approach to Earth, 270 million km or 1.8 AU, was on 19 December 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Perihelion occurred on 29 October, 203 million km or 1.36 AU from the Sun.<\/p>\n<p>Thought to originate from a region of the Milky Way populated by older stars, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/interstellar-visitor-3i-atlas-oldest-comet-ever-seen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">3I\/ATLAS may be over 7 billion years old<\/a> \u2013 older than our Solar System.<\/p>\n<p>As far as amateur observations go, it\u2019s a tricky object due to its low brightness.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"772\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767307391_81_3i-atlas-january-2026.jpg\" alt=\"Chart showing the location of comet 3I\/ATLAS in January 2026. Credit: Pete Lawrence\" class=\"wp-image-179811\"\/>Chart showing the location of comet 3I\/ATLAS in January 2026. Credit: Pete Lawrence<\/p>\n<p>On 1 January 2026, comet 3I\/ATLAS is expected to be at mag. +15.6, best suited to imaging setups.<\/p>\n<p>Although faint, it\u2019s within reach of smaller smart telescopes. In late December, 3I\/ATLAS was near the bright star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/advice\/regulus\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Regulus<\/a> (Alpha (\u03b1) Leonis), following a westward path towards Cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On 1 January, it lies approximately 2.5\u00b0 north of mag. +3.5 Omicron (\u03bf) Leonis, around 20\u00b0 above the eastern horizon at 22:00 UT, reaching 52\u00b0 altitude when due south at 03:00 UT.<\/p>\n<p>It passes just under 4\u00b0 north of mag. +6.9 M67 on the nights of 11\/12 and 12\/13 January, when it could be mag. +16.0.<\/p>\n<p>On 16 January, at mag. +16.3, it passes 3.5\u00b0 south of M44. Towards the end of the month, it\u2019s not far from Jupiter.<\/p>\n<p>If you manage to spot or photograph comet 3I\/ATLAS in January 2026, let us know by emailing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/mailto:contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comet 3I\/ATLAS is a rare interstellar visitor, a comet not gravitationally bound to any star, and only the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-222406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}