Comet Atlas C/2024 G3 Visible With Nake Eye And On LASCO!

James Kaufman, World News Report today, January 11, 2025. God bless you and yours, no matter where you are in the world. Please subscribe, give us a thumbs up, ring that bell for critical future updates. Comet ATLAS C-2024-G3 is visible with a naked eye as it heads towards the sun. Yes, sun-grazing comet. Atlas C24G3 is brightening rapidly as it falls toward the sun for a Monday close encounter. Monday the 13th is the same day as the full moon. This morning, before sunrise, it was visible with the naked eye. Its magnitude is about negative 0.8. If current trends hold, Comet Atlas could brighten another two to four magnitudes by January 13th when the comet swoops only 0.09 astronomical units from the sun. Although it will likely be brighter than Venus, only most experienced observers should attempt to photograph a comet because of the blinding sun and the dangers of the sun. If Comet Atlas survives the heat going around the sun, it could become a nice object in the evening sky next week. Southern Hemisphere observers are favored, but many Northerners will also be able to see it. Comet Atlas C2024G3 has also just entered the field of view of SOHO's C3 coronagraph. Let's check it out. You can see that happened today, just a few hours ago. By right about 6 UTC time, which would have been right about midnight last night, you can see how large it looks on LASCO. The comet will remain visible to LASCO throughout the comet's January 13th close encounter with the Sun, allowing us to monitor its real health as it endures fierce solar heat. So it should graze the sun and come just in front of it. By less than one astronomical unit, and then it should head back towards Earth to be seen in the evening skies. If this seems like a Mandela effect to you, it does to me as well. We just watched Comet Atlas, and I'm sure it was a different Comet Atlas, go around the Sun, not less than a few months ago. I don't think it could possibly be the same comet. We will keep you updated on this, folks, but it is visible on Lasco and to the naked eye now in the mornings. God bless, share, subscribe, and always remember, anything's possible in bizarro world.