{"id":578299,"date":"2026-04-11T17:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T17:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/578299\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T17:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T17:37:09","slug":"stargazers-will-be-able-to-see-rare-comet-not-visible-since-prehistoric-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/578299\/","title":{"rendered":"Stargazers will be able to see rare comet not visible since prehistoric times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a real flash in the \u201cPan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Artemis II moon mission may have concluded, but there are still some cosmic wonders on the horizon. For the first time since the prehistoric age, interstellar comet C\/2025 R3 (Pan-STARRS) will be passing through our neck of the solar system, offering Earthlings a rare chance to glimpse this celestial drifter.<\/p>\n

First spotted by the Pan-STARRS survey at Haleakala, Hawaii, on Sept. 7, 2025, the iceball only orbits the sun once every 170,000 years, making this celestial cameo super rare, Space.com reported.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"CometComet PanSTARRS sets over the Very Large Array radio telescope antenna dishes March 12, 2013 near Magdalena, New Mexico. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The dirty snowball will brighten over the next 10 days as it approaches our inner solar system, thereby making it easier to spot. Pan-STARRS will reach perihelion \u2014 its closest point to the sun \u2014 on April 19. <\/p>\n

But it will only come within 0.5 AU \u2014 half the Earth-sun distance \u2014 meaning that it won\u2019t disintegrate like other \u201csungrazer\u201d comets, Forbes reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Pan-STARRS will make its closest approach to Earth on April 27 \u2014 when it will be at its brightest\u2013 but will unfortunately be impossible to see from the Northern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

How to watch<\/p>\n

\"NightThe comet Pan-STARRS and a waxing crescent moon above the Stratosphere Casino Hotel and the Las Vegas skyline at night. Getty Images<\/p>\n

How does one take advantage of this once-in-many-lifetimes opportunity? Take a gander between April 10-20, when the comet is becoming increasingly radiant but not yet obscured by the sun\u2019s glare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During that window, STARRS-gazers in the Northern Hemisphere are urged to look low in the eastern sky about an hour and a half before sunrise. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to catch the comet, your best chance is over the next week or so as the comet brightens, but it remains observable in a relatively dark sky,\u201d\u00a0<\/a>said\u00a0Nick James, head of the comet section at the British Astronomical Association. \u201cYou will need to get up early, a couple of hours before sunrise, and have a good, low, eastern horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Observes should search within the constellation Pegasus, which the comet is currently traversing near the iconic Great Square of Pegasus \u2014 4 stars of nearly equal brightness: Scheat, Alpheratz, Markab and Algenib.<\/p>\n

Skywatchers should look for a soft, diffuse coma, potentially with a tail that\u2019s just starting to sprout. This process could be accelerated as solar heating intensifies.<\/p>\n

While Pan-STARRS is visible to the naked eye, a pair of 10\u00d750 binoculars (or similar dimensions) will be helpful during the rising dawn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a real flash in the \u201cPan.\u201d The Artemis II moon mission may have concluded, but there are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[6626,32021,79,193],"class_list":["post-578299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-astronomy","tag-comets","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}