Comet 17P
Holmes blazes away in this raw image from an observatory at Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas. The usually dim comet suddenly brightened by
400,000 times in less than 24 hours, and has now reached a magnitude (2.0) approaching
the brightest stars and clearly visible to the naked eye.
Comets can
undergo sudden mysterious outbursts in brightness. When Holmes was first
discovered in 1892, it was at magnitude 4.0 – but was no brighter than
magnitude 17 in mid-October of this year, making it 25,000 times fainter than
the faintest star visible to the naked eye. Another mysterious feature of
Holmes is the lack of a tail or other irregularity.
Comet
Holmes will appear high in the northern night skies over the next few weeks,
never rising or setting as it lurks in the constellation Perseus. Even while
shining for human observers, the object still remains 151 million miles (243
million kilometers) away from Earth.
–Arkansas Sky
Observatories/Clay Sherrod and SPACE.com Staff
Credit: Arkansas Sky Observatories/Clay Sherrod
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