Astronomers have discovered an exciting new ‘sun-grazing’ comet that will have a dangerously close encounter with our home star within two months. Some experts predict that the giant ice ball could become bright enough to be seen with the naked eye during the day, but only if the comet survives the sun’s dangerous shot.
The newly discovered comet, named C/2026 A1 (MAPS), was discovered on January 13 by a team of French astronomers at the AMACS1 observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert. It is probably about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) wide and was just over twice as far from the sun as Earth when it was first discovered, according to Sky & Telescope magazine.
C/2026 A1 belongs to the Kreutz family of “sun-grazing” comets. The comet is a group of at least 3,500 comets with orbits within 850,000 miles (1.4 million km) of our home star. According to Live Science’s sister site Space.com, Kreuz’s sungrazer is suspected to be a piece of debris from a single giant comet that was torn apart by the sun about 1,700 years ago.
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The icy ball of rock and gas will reach its closest point to the sun, called perihelion, on April 4, when it will be within about 500,000 miles (800,000 km) of our home star, or about 70 times closer to the sun than Mercury. At such a close approach, the comet would fly around the Sun at speeds of more than 2 million miles per hour (3.2 million km), exposing it to intense gravitational pressure, high temperatures, and large amounts of solar radiation.
This huge strain can eventually tear the comet apart, and this also happens to most other comets facing the Sun. But if it survives the dangerous perihelion, C/2026 A1 will be so changed by the event that it will shine like an incredibly bright star – potentially even during the day.
How bright will it be?
C/2026 A1 comes from a particularly notable subgroup of Kreuzian solar absorbers, which are thought to be fragments of the “Great Comet of 1106,” which was itself the remains of the family’s giant ancestor. Previous alumni of this subgroup include Comet Ikeya-Seki, which shone brighter than the full moon in 1965, and Comet Lovejoy, which was largely torn apart in 2011 and became a “headless wonder.”
As these comets made their own solar approaches, they became unusually bright, due in large part to the large amounts of gas released as they absorbed solar radiation. This has caused some sungrazers to grow spectacular “broom-like” tails as they approach the sun, and this could also happen with C/2026 A1, according to Sky & Telescope.
It’s too early to predict exactly how bright C/2026 A1 will be. However, according to an article in The Conversation, some researchers speculate that it could be several times brighter than a full moon, making it visible to the naked eye in the daytime sky. But this only happens if we survive perihelion. Otherwise, you won’t be able to get close to maximum brightness.
Most comets that graze the Sun are small and are discovered several days before they reach perihelion. Usually, they too are torn apart by the encounter. For example, during a total solar eclipse in April 2024, researchers spotted a tiny sungrazer hours before it disappeared forever.
How to read C/2026 A1 (MAPS)
If C/2026 A1 survives its deadly dance with the sun, it could reach its maximum brightness a few days after its closest approach to Earth later in the month.
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Observers in the southern hemisphere will have the best view of the comet, according to Sky & Telescope. However, people in the Global North will be able to see the object low on the southwest horizon just before sunset.
But even if the comet breaks up, it will still be visible starting in late March if you have a decent telescope or stargazing binoculars.
Later in April, another spectacular comet, C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS), may also become visible to the naked eye as it approaches perihelion on April 20th. This ice ball was previously (and perhaps prematurely) referred to as the “Great Comet of 2026.”
Only time will tell if the C/2026 A1 can claim that title.
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