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November’s night sky features the record-breaking comet C/2014 UN271, a rare lunar occultation of Spica, and stunning celestial pairings, will be an extraordinary month for skywatchers.
Comet McNaught over the Pacific Ocean.(Image Credit: NASA/ESO/Sebastian Deiries)
New Delhi: November’s night sky is special by the appearance of the largest comet ever discovered, C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein). Halley’s Comet boasts an icy nucleus that is larger than Halley’s Comet and hints at much larger comets yet to be discovered as observational data increases. This giant is now more than 2 billion miles away from our planet, which makes it an object of interest for astronomers. The Hubble Space Telescope has offered crucial observations, and it can help estimate the diameter of its nucleus, which may be as large as 80 miles.
Comets are sometimes called “icy snowballs” and are made up of ice, dust, gas, and rock. When the nucleus of the comet goes near the sun, heat leads to evaporation of the nucleus, and a coma is formed around the comet. Comets typically exhibit two distinct tails: a dust tail that is trailing away from the Sun and an ion tail that is generated by the Sun. These tails are most visible on some occasions, like the sighting of comet McNaught in 2007, which had a tail measuring over 100 million miles.
Apart from being beautiful, comets create the stunning art of making meteor showers too. They spin around the sun and litter space, which Earth crosses from time to time, and get beautiful meteor shows. One of the more often known is the Perseid meteor shower, distinguishable by Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, that appears every August, with the next pass of the comet being expected in 2126.
Skywatching Highlights
During this month, a number of extraordinary cosmic events can be observed.
- On November 4, shortly after dusk, people will get to see the Crescent with Venus. While in the southern sky,
- Saturn will be most viewed on the 10th of November, when it will be located quite near the moon.
- November 27 will see a very infrequent phenomenon where the moon occludes a bright star, Spica. For residents of eastern U.S. and Canada, this amusing event is worth witnessing since the event features a bright star being blocked by the moon.
Apart from these, there is more. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Closer is expected over Venus on 6th November and might manage to take pictures to reveal about the planet. As the month unfurls, a season of breathtaking views and celestial occurrences is around the corner for space fans.
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