If you’re a fan of stargazing, make sure you keep an eye to the skies this month. An enormous green comet is brightening rapidly, and could become visible to the naked eye by the end of April.
The comet, called Atlas, was first discovered back in December, and is roughly five times the size of Jupiter. Writing for Space Weather Archive, astronomer Tony Phillips explained: “On the scale of big things in the solar system, Comet ATLAS falls somewhere between the sun (1,392,000 km diameter) and Jupiter (139,820 km).
It’s not unusual for comets to grow so large. “While their icy solid cores are typically mere kilometres in diameter, they can spew prodigious amounts of gas and dust into space, filling enormous volumes.” The comet will start to