{"id":652985,"date":"2026-10-21T09:10:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/652985\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T09:10:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:10:32","slug":"weve-got-a-new-comet-in-our-skies-and-its-the-first-ever-discovered-by-a-brand-new-space-telescope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/652985\/","title":{"rendered":"We’ve got a new comet in our skies. And it’s the first ever discovered by a brand new space telescope"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a new comet in town \u2013 and it\u2019s the first discovered by the Euclid space telescope.<\/p>\n

As of 8 October 2026, a new comet has been added to the astronomical record books.<\/p>\n

It’s comet C\/2026 S1 (Euclid), to be precise, the name denoting that it is the first comet to have been discovered by the European Space Agency\u2019s Euclid space telescope<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Around 40 to 50 new comets are identified each year, mostly because astronomers today have much higher-resolution imaging equipment at their disposal than they did 100, 50 or even 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

As a result, small bodies that we haven\u2019t previously seen are popping up in space images all the time.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting in this case, though, is the source, because Euclid wasn\u2019t designed to spot comets at all.<\/p>\n

Launched in 2023, Euclid\u2019s primary mission is all about dark matter<\/a> and dark energy.<\/p>\n

\"ImageImage of the Horsehead Nebula captured by the Euclid space telescope. Credit: ESA\/Euclid\/Euclid Consortium\/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay), G. Anselmi<\/p>\n

\"Artist\u2019sArtist\u2019s impression of the Euclid spacecraft observing the dark Universe. Credit: ESA\/Euclid\/Euclid Consortium\/NASA. Background galaxies: NASA, ESA, and S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team,\u00a0CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
\nWhy the Euclid space telescope is such a game changer<\/p>\n

In ESA\u2019s own words: “The space telescope will create a great map of the large-scale structure of the Universe across space and time by observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion lightyears, across more than a third of the sky.<\/p>\n

“Euclid will explore how the Universe has expanded and how structure has formed over cosmic history, revealing more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter.”<\/p>\n

Got that? Billions of lightyears. A third of the sky. Billions of galaxies. Cosmic history.<\/p>\n

Big stuff, in other words. Not small lumps of rock and ice meandering around our own Solar System\u2026 and yet Euclid has found one all the same.<\/p>\n

\"Newly-discoveredNewly discovered comet C\/2026 S1 (Euclid) is the first to be found by the Euclid space telescope. Credit: ESA\/Euclid\/Euclid Consortium\/NASA, M. P\u00f6ntinen et al. 2026
\nHow the new comet was found<\/p>\n

The discovery was made by University of Helsinki PhD candidate Mikko P\u00f6ntinen, who together with the Solar System Objects Science Working Group of the Euclid Consortium has been developing motion-detection software to find and monitor Solar System objects in Euclid\u2019s images.<\/p>\n

Not so that these objects can be studied, but rather so that the \u2018noise\u2019 they generate can be discounted when processing and studying Euclid imagery.<\/p>\n

It reminds us of the famous 18th century comet hunter Charles Messier, who compiled a list of all the brightest deep-sky objects (known as the Messier Catalogue<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Not because he loved observing galaxies, nebulae and star clusters, but because those objects aren’t comets.<\/p>\n

\"AA wide-field view of the sky containing comet C\/2026 S1 (Euclid), captured on 20 September 2026. Credit: ESA\/Euclid\/Euclid Consortium\/NASA, M. P\u00f6ntinen et al. 2026<\/p>\n

“I was excited to see my software flag a \u2018streak\u2019 smeared across several images \u2013 the result of a fast-moving object,” P\u00f6ntinen says of his discovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy predicting its position I could identify it in other images, in total finding it in five image sets. Further inspection revealed that it had a fuzzy cloud around it, indicative of an active object like a comet that is shedding dust and gas.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After checking that the moving object he\u2019d stumbled upon wasn\u2019t listed in any catalogues of known comets and asteroids, P\u00f6ntinen reported his discovery to the International Astronomical Union\u2019s\u00a0Minor Planet Center, who instigated a programme of follow-up observations by ground-based astronomers.<\/p>\n

These observations confirmed P\u00f6ntinen\u2019s findings, and as a result, comet C\/2026 S1 (Euclid) was officially recognised on 8 October 2026.<\/p>\n

As of October 2026, it’s located in the constellation Draco, but much too dim to be seen through amateur telescopes.<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationIllustration showing the orbit of comet C\/2026 S1 (Euclid). Visualisations by the Minor Planet Center, collage by K. Jahnke
\nThis comet has an unusual orbit<\/p>\n

The comet orbits the Sun at a distance of around 1.3 billion kilometres (808 million miles), which would put it somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn if it orbited in the same plane as the planets. But it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Instead, comet C\/2026 S1 (Euclid) has an orbit that\u2019s almost perpendicular to the orbits of the Solar System\u2019s major bodies, which is one reason we\u2019ve never seen it before.<\/p>\n

The other reason is that its orbital period is measured in thousands of years, making this probably the first time it\u2019s come into view since telescopes were invented.<\/p>\n

While the remarkable discovery is interesting itself, it also points to a potential secondary role for Euclid.<\/p>\n

ESA is currently readying its Comet Interceptor mission, which will involve sending a robotic probe into space to approach and study a long period comet<\/a> \u2013 or even an interstellar comet \u2013 in our Solar System.<\/p>\n

A target for this mission has yet to be chosen \u2013 but now we know that Euclid can detect comets a long way from the Sun, and that the world astronomical community can confirm them in a matter of days, we might have just stumbled on a new way of identifying one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a new comet in town \u2013 and it\u2019s the first discovered by the Euclid space telescope. As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[85,46,141],"class_list":["post-652985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}