Comet ATLAS and the Mighty Galaxies
Comet ATLAS C/2019 Y4
was discovered by the NASA funded
Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System,
the last comet discovery reported in 2019.
Now growing brighter in northern night skies, the comet's pretty
greenish coma is at the upper left of
this telescopic skyview
captured from a remotely operated observatory
in New Mexico on March 18.
At lower right are M81 and M82, well-known as
large, gravitationally interacting galaxies.
Seen through faint dust clouds above the Milky Way,
the galaxy pair lies about 12 million light-years distant, toward
the constellation Ursa Major.
In bound Comet ATLAS is about 9 light-minutes from Earth, still beyond the
orbit of Mars.
The comet's elongated orbit is similar to
orbit of the
Great
Comet of 1844
though, a trajectory that will return
this comet to the inner Solar System in about 6,000 years.
Comet ATLAS
will reach a perihelion
or closest approach to the Sun on May 31 inside the orbit of Mercury and
may become a naked-eye comet
in
the coming days.