Photos show that Comet SWAN significantly increased in brightness between April 3 and April 6, before dimming once more. This suggests that it experienced some sort of outburst. Image courtesy of Mike Olason
Joel Kontinen
Space is wonderful and we do not know all its details. Now some scientist s are claiming the object might be a cold comet.
The icy outburst, which temporarily caused the comet
to brighten, could be a sign that it is a "cold volcano." The
eruption also may have implications for whether the comet will be visible to
the naked eye — but it is too soon to tell for sure.
Comet C/2025 F2
(SWAN) was discovered April 1 by an Australian amateur astronomer who
was searching through data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a
collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency. The
green comet, which was previously dubbed SWAN25F before being officially
recognized by NASA, is predicted to reach its closest point to the sun on May
1, when it will get within 31 million miles (50 million kilometers) of our home
star.
But new
images of the comet, captured by Arizona-based astrophotographer Mike
Olason, show that the comet showed a significant increase in brightness shortly
after it was first spotted. This was likely the result of an eruption, which
sprayed ice and dust into space and reflected additional sunlight back to
Earth, Spaceweather.com reported.
"For those who have wondered why Comet SWAN has
been so hard to observe the past few mornings, it is because the comet has
faded a magnitude since reaching its brightest point several days ago,"
Olason told Spaceweather.com. "Sometime between April 3 and April 6, the
comet had a major eruption, which increased its brightness by a factor of
4.".
Usually comets are not cold but there are exemptions.
Harry Baker 2025
Posts
