Comet SWAN 2020 and 5 tips for viewing it from home
Comet SWAN 2020 and 5 tips for viewing it
[ A blog on the universe and the cosmos above and the nature of it determined by great scientists ]
Comet SWAN is a a non periodic comet which will be visible from throughout the world. It is currently seen in its brightest stage from the southern hemisphere and will be seen in its brightest phases in northern hemisphere during the period of 15th of May until the 17th of May. During its brightest phases it can be easily spotted by the naked eye without using any telescope.
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| Comet SWAN during its brightest phase |
- What are comets
- Comet SWAN
- Viewing Comet SWAN
What are Comets :
Comets are nothing but small chunks of ice which revolve around the sun in fixed elliptical orbits. These comets are however really very small in size. So much so comets are refereed as small solar system bodies [ SSSB ]. For celestial bodies in our solar system, there are various terms by which they can be defined, like stars, planets, satellites, dwarf planets and SSSB. Of these SSSB's are the smallest.
Even though we mentioned above that comets have fixed elliptical orbits around the sun, their orbits are no close to the orbits of other planets in our solar system. Comets have highly compressed elliptical orbits. Because of this their orbits are spread vertically across a large area and this results into more time revolving around the sun. Some of the comets are reported of having such long orbits that it takes several decades to complete one revolution.
As of now , we don't really know when the first comet appeared but there have been records of observing comets with the help of telescope. Comets like Krich's Comet or the Newton's comet were of the first to be observed back in the seventeenth century.The primary reason why such comets were noticeable was because of their brightness.
So as mentioned above, comets are made of ice and dirt and they don't have their own light. So how do they produce light because which they are noticeable in the dark night sky? The answer is outgassing. Comets are made of ice and certainly don't have their own light , but when they come close enough to the sun while revolving in their orbits, their constituent materials start to vaporize. This term is called as Outgassing in astronomical terms and this what causes the tail and a coma of the Comet.
The tail of a comet is the vaporized ice particles which are left behind as it moves ahead in its orbit. These tails vary in their sizes. Some of these are so bright that they can be seen with naked eye while some of them need telescopic vision to be observed. On the other hand, coma is the comet itself which gets brightened due to it close approach towards the sun and its constituent ice particles vaporizing off. Due to these results a comet can be easily recognized and not confused with any other celestial event.
However if we dive deep enough then we find that these comets can be distinguished into periodic and non periodic comets. Periodic Comets are the comets which take less than 200 years to complete one revolution while on the other hand Non periodic comets are those which take more than 200 years to orbit the sun. Comets which only appeared once and the once which do not orbit the sun are also considered to be Non Periodic Comet. And one of such non periodic comets will be visible this year in the month of may. This comet is called a Comet SWAN. So do read the whole blog as you don't want to miss a comet Non Periodc comet.
Comet SWAN :
As mentioned above the Comet SWAN is a non - periodic comet that was last seen in 2009. Its discovery dates back to March 26, 2009. The credit of first observing the appearance of this comet is given to a Korean Astronomer named Dae-am Yi. It is also the first comet discovered by a Korean. Due to this , this comet is also sometimes called as Yi SWAN. Later in the same year, it was reported that a comet was discovered by SOHO with the help of the SWAN instrument.
SOHO: SOHO is an acronym for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. SOHO was a spacecraft designed by European Space Agencies [ ESA ]and NASA for the purpose of studying the sun. Initially this program was designed to operate along a timeline of about 2 years, however now the program has been working for more than 24 years and is planned to collect data until the end of this year - 2020.
SOHO was a spacecraft built for the purpose of studying the sun's outer layer, Solar winds, and the dynamics of the sun which is also sometimes refereed as to helioseismology. While the interesting part is that this spacecraft has also been credited for the discovery of over 3000 comets and comet SWAN is also a part of this huge colony.
The SOHO spacecraft was fitted with may instruments of one was called as Solar wind Anisotropies or in short SWAN. And because the first images of this comet were taken by SWAN instrument on the SOHO spacecraft, this comet is named after it as Comet SWAN.
As this comet is nearing to the sun it will be visible to the naked eye. I will be covering a few points about it later in this post.
SOHO: SOHO is an acronym for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. SOHO was a spacecraft designed by European Space Agencies [ ESA ]and NASA for the purpose of studying the sun. Initially this program was designed to operate along a timeline of about 2 years, however now the program has been working for more than 24 years and is planned to collect data until the end of this year - 2020.
SOHO was a spacecraft built for the purpose of studying the sun's outer layer, Solar winds, and the dynamics of the sun which is also sometimes refereed as to helioseismology. While the interesting part is that this spacecraft has also been credited for the discovery of over 3000 comets and comet SWAN is also a part of this huge colony.
The SOHO spacecraft was fitted with may instruments of one was called as Solar wind Anisotropies or in short SWAN. And because the first images of this comet were taken by SWAN instrument on the SOHO spacecraft, this comet is named after it as Comet SWAN.
As this comet is nearing to the sun it will be visible to the naked eye. I will be covering a few points about it later in this post.
Viewing Comet SWAN :
As mentioned above Comet SWAN was discovered by the SWAN telescope of SOHO spacecraft. It last appeared in 2018 but was so dim that could not be witnessed with the naked eye. This time however you can see this comet if you do follow the tips mentioned below. Also be sure to read all of them as they are for your benefit
- Tip 1. Place : You need to select a place from where you can easily spot the comet. If you are in a place where you have tall skyscrapers surrounding you then you better go off to the rooftop.
- Tip 2. Hemisphere : It is important to take into account in which hemisphere you are currently located in. If you are positioned in the southern hemisphere, then sorry to say but you may have missed the comet. The reason is that this comet is being witnessed along the southern hemisphere since May 3 and now will be dimming off.
However if you are positioned in the northern hemisphere then you are lucky enough to read this blogpost in time. As this comet will be now seen in its bright phases from the northern hemisphere, you have a really high chance of witnessing it. And then with its bright tail and the brightest ever coma it is predicted to produce than it has ever, the chances of you missing the comet are reduced.
- Tip 3. Time : Time is very crucial for getting a glimpse of this comet. As moving to ahead towards the sun, it is estimated that it will be seen for a very short period of time. It will be visible before the sunrise in the most of the places.
- Tip 4. Date : Yes, the date on which you are planning to see this comet is important. As it will be approximately active from 12th to 16th May 2020. This is the time when it will be the closest to the earth maximizing the chances of you viewing the come SWAN. And also as its magnitude will be 2.8 at that tie period, you just can't take the chance of missing it.
- Tip 5. Constellation : It becomes a lot more easier to look out for comets when you know through which constellation they will be passing through. Int his case , Comet SWAN will be passing through the constellation of Triangulum during 16th of May 2020. As it will be passing through the constellation on 16th , it can be a lot easier to view it during that time.
This Constellation is visible in the northern sky and can be identified by its three brightest stars which form the shape of a long and narrow triangle. This is why the constellation derives the name Triangulum from. This constellation is easily visible through naked eye in situations when the air pollution is low. And nowadays air pollution has decreased by significant amounts due to the lockdowns practiced by multiple countries.
I collected information from a few videos of a you tuber and have come to the conclusion that this constellation may be visible at around 15 degrees above the orizon at some time before sunrise. Now you may have to keep a watch as to when the constellation arises so that you maximize your chances of witnessing one of the brightest comets of the year.
This is the very video I referred for getting lot of information about where this comet will be visible. This guy is a wonderful youtuber who has a lot of videos on astronomy topics. You can view them on this channel!
Now the last thing we can prey for is that his comet is within the exact magnitude levels so that it is not very faint like the previous one which occurred this year , comet ATLAS.
And if that becomes true then there will be a comet coming in the month of June which will be quite visible too. But for now lets keep it a suspense for another such blog !!! :)
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