Astronomers recently pointed their telescopes over Manciano, Italy, and captured something incredible. A bright comet appeared to be wrapped in a corkscrew trail of meteors, shining like a cosmic barber’s pole in the same part of the sky.
Because there are millions of miles between the meteor in the foreground and the comet in the background, the odds of capturing such a chance shot were (excuse the pun) astronomically low.
“In this photo, the meteor’s afterglow appears wrapped around the comet’s ion tail, a miracle of pure perspective,” astronomer Gianluca Masi, founder of the Virtual Telescope Project and the photographer who took this stunning shot, said in a statement. “The former is an atmospheric effect caused by the meteor, but the comet itself was about 100 million kilometers away. [62 million miles] Away. “
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The comet seen here is C/2025 A6 (Lemon). It is one of three comets currently sweeping the solar system, along with comet R2 (SWAN) and interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS. Comet Lemmon, which made its closest approach to Earth on October 21st, is the brightest of the comets and remains highly visible with simple telescopes and astronomical binoculars for several days afterwards.
Masi discovered the comet on the night of October 24th. Its long, blue tail, a product of ionized gases evaporated from the comet’s surface and blown away by the solar wind, was clearly visible. However, for several minutes during Masi’s observation, another streamer-like structure became visible near the comet. It’s a faint remnant of an ion trail left by a meteor plummeting through Earth’s atmosphere.
Here you can see a golden line spiraling around the comet. The meteor’s trajectory constantly evolved over the course of Maci’s observations, appearing briefly as if it were part of the comet itself. In reality, this signature is the result of a chemical reaction in the atmosphere caused by the super-fast passage of a meteor.
“This phenomenon is associated with the ionization of oxygen molecules in the atmosphere caused by meteor events and their subsequent recombination, which releases light at that wavelength,” Masi said.
Meteors typically travel at speeds of more than 100,000 miles (160,000 km) per hour, and their trails can linger in the sky for several minutes, according to NASA. During this period, winds blowing at different altitudes can shape these trails into the winding streamer shape seen here. Masi also posted a time-lapse video of the meteor event on YouTube, showing a glowing trail racing across the sky in front of the comet for several minutes.
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The phenomenon of spiral meteor trails has not been widely studied, but is thought to be relatively rare. A series of papers published in the 1980s and 1990s estimated that only 0.5% of observed meteors leave nonlinear trajectories. However, this number is not reliable and may have been skewed by the sub-optimal settings of the camera used to record the meteor trail at the time.
The annual Orionid meteor shower, caused by debris from Halley’s Comet, peaked on October 20-21, the same night that Comet Lemmon was at its brightest. Although the rain is easing, it will continue into November 7, meaning there could be more shooting stars like the one Maci caught at night. If you keep your eyes on the sky, you may find your own “miracle”.
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