This Monday is your best chance to observe Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS as it approaches its closest point to Earth. The celestial body, which has illuminated the skies of Baja California and much of the planet, will reach its peak illumination in the Northern Hemisphere on October 14 and 15, earning its title as one of the brightest objects in the sky this century.
This stellar body comes from the Oort Cloud, a spherical cloud of trans-Neptunian objects that is known to be the 'edge' of our Solar System, almost a light-year away from our parent star.
Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is a unique celestial body, as it is visiting us for the first and last time. In the words of Dr. René A. Ortega Minakata of the UNAM Institute of Radioastronomy and Astrophysics, “This comet will be special for two reasons. One: it is very likely to enter the solar system only once, since, unlike Diablo or Halley's Comet, this one is not periodic. Two: it could be very bright, but what happens after its passage by the Sun will have a lot to do with that factor.”
The best time to observe the comet is during twilight and at night. For now, it is almost touching the horizon, but as the days pass, it will gradually fade until it gradually loses its brightness as it moves away from Earth, continuing its journey into the infinity of the Universe until it returns to our Solar System in approximately 80,000 years.
