{"id":138578,"date":"2022-04-25T00:03:56","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T05:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/comet-c-2021-o3-might-be-visible-in-binoculars"},"modified":"2022-04-25T00:03:56","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T05:03:56","slug":"comet-c-2021-o3-might-be-visible-in-binoculars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/comet-c-2021-o3-might-be-visible-in-binoculars","title":{"rendered":"Comet C\/2021 O3 might be visible in binoculars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/comet-c-2021-o3-might-be-visible-in-binoculars.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A comet discovered last July is fast approaching our part of the solar system and might reach binocular visibility (at least) by May 2022. It\u2019s designated <a href=\"https:\/\/ssd.jpl.nasa.gov\/tools\/sbdb_lookup.html#\/?sstr=1003796\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">C\/2021 O3 (PanSTARRS)<\/a>. The comet will be emerging into our western evening sky at least by early May. The comet is currently passing close to the sun, and it might not survive that passage \u2026 but if it does, get ready! Charts below.<\/p>\n<p>Comet PanSTARRS will come close to the sun, closer than the planet Mercury. Its closest point, called its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/perihelion\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">perihelion<\/a>, will come on April 21, 2022. It\u2019ll sweep 0.29 astronomical units (<a href=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/space\/what-is-the-astronomical-unit\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AU<\/a>) from our star (1 AU = 1 average Earth-sun unit of distance). So \u2013 given that Mercury\u2019s sunny side reaches temperatures of around 750 to 800 degrees Fahrenheit (up to about 430 degrees Celsius) \u2013 you can see that Comet C\/2021 O3 (PanSTARRS) will <em>really<\/em> feel the sun\u2019s heat.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why Comet C\/2021 O3 might disintegrate, as some comets do, when nearest our star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A comet discovered last July is fast approaching our part of the solar system and might reach binocular visibility (at least) by May 2022. It\u2019s designated C\/2021 O3 (PanSTARRS). The comet will be emerging into our western evening sky at least by early May. The comet is currently passing close to the sun, and it [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}