{"id":790173,"date":"2024-10-10T14:02:53","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T19:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=790173"},"modified":"2024-10-10T14:02:53","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T19:02:53","slug":"rare-comet-to-streak-across-night-sky-heres-how-you-can-see-it-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=790173","title":{"rendered":"Rare comet to streak across night sky. Here\u2019s how you can see it : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n Comet C\/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-Atlas is seen over the hills near the village of Aguas Blancas, Lavalleja Department, Uruguay, at dawn on Sept. 28,.
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Mariana Suarez\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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Mariana Suarez\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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A comet discovered last year \u2014 known as C\/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS \u2014 is set to make a close approach to Earth in the coming days.<\/p>\n

The snowy dirtball is nearly 2 miles in diameter and its tail of dust and gasses extends for tens of millions of miles, Bill Cooke, lead of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, told NPR.<\/p>\n

It was first discovered in 2023 by observers at the Purple Mountain Observatory in China and an Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System<\/u> (ATLAS) telescope in South Africa. From the Oort Cloud<\/u>, a spherical shell that surrounds the solar system and contains icy objects like comets, the comet will come within 44 million miles of Earth, NASA said. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n