TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Throughout this December track comet Leonard can be seen by observers in Indonesia with the naked eye. “The rainy season and clouds can be the main obstacles to hunting for comets at this time,” said Avivah Yamani, an astronomer activist from the Southern Sky community, Monday, December 6, 2021.
The new comet was discovered by Greg Leonard on January 3, 2021 while making sky observations at Observatory Mount Lemmon, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America.
Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) was found to be heading towards the Sun or in the middle of its closest approach to the Sun. On December 12, 2021, according to Avivah, comet Leonard will pass near or be at its closest distance to Earth, which is almost 35 million kilometers. “On December 18th, komet Leonard will be close to Venus as far as 4.2 million kilometers, “he said.
From the Southern Sky page, comet Leonard has an orbital period of 80 thousand years with a hyperbolic orbit. That means this comet only passes through the Solar System once and will not return again. Comet Leonard, coming from the Oort cloud, has entered Neptune’s orbit since May 2009 after spending 40,000 years traveling from a distance of 3700 AU or 550 million kilometers.
The best time to observe if the sky is clear is before approaching Earth on December 12, which is before sunrise. Until December 10, comet Leonard can be observed in the east. On December 11, the tailed star was difficult to observe because of its very low position in the eastern horizon. As for December 12-13, it cannot be observed at all because it appears after sunrise and disappears before sunset.
Starting December 14, Leonard’s comet will appear after sunset with dimming brightness. On December 17, the comet’s position was not far from the Morning Star in the evening sky. The comet will be seen steadily rising in the western sky until the end of December. After the encounter with the sun, comet Leonard will not return again and is ejected out of the Solar System.
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