Comet ATLAS Latest Update/ Comet C/2019 Y4/ Doomsday/ Apocalypse

Описание: Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (formally designated D/1993 F2) was a comet that broke apart in July 1992 and collided with Jupiter in July 1994, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of Solar System objects. This generated a large amount of coverage in the popular media, and the comet was closely observed by astronomers worldwide. The collision provided new information about Jupiter and highlighted its possible role in reducing space debris in the inner Solar System.C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) may become very bright. It is a near-parabolic comet that was discovered by the ATLAS survey on December 28, 2019, in Hawaii, which made it the last comet discovery of that year.
It is currently the second-brightest comet of the night sky and is close to the limit of naked eye visibility from very dark locations. It brightens at a rate of 0.25 magnitudes per day and it is expected that the comet's apparent magnitude may peak between a magnitude of 2 to –11 at perihelion, which is comparable to the brightness of Comet Ikeya–Seki. It is predicted that Comet ATLAS may reach magnitude –8.2 on its perigee and –11.7 on its perihelion. Another source said that it will reach 5 magnitude at 1 May, and peak a brightness between 2 and -6.

The coma (ATLAS's gaseous envelope) has ballooned in diameter and it is estimated to extend up to 720000 km, more than twice the diameter of Jupiter or about half as wide as the Sun or about 400 times bigger than Earth, by new images taken by an amateur astronomer who measuring the comet's angular diameter on 18 March 2020 when it was only 1.1 AU away from Earth. On the scale of big things in the Solar system Comet ATLAS falls between the Sun (1,392,000 km) and Jupiter (139,820 km). For observers on Earth they can see a 30 arcminutes or a half of degree wide coma (the thin dissipating dust ball around the comet's solid core or nucleus) as of 24 March, which was twice that of 18 March (for comparison the moon is also 30 arcminutes wide as seen from Earth) and rapidly brightening day by day. It's not unusual for a comet to grow this large, while their solid ice cores are typically mere kilometers in diameter like Comet ATLAS, they can spew prodigious amounts of gas and dust into space, filling enormous volumes with their gossamer exhaust as they near the Sun. In the fall of 2007, Comet 17/P Holmes partially exploded, and for a while had an atmosphere even larger than the Sun. The Great Comet of 1811 also had a sun-sized coma. Whether comet ATLAS will eventually rival those behemoths of the past remains to be seen.
C/2019 Y4 was discovered on CCD images taken on December 28, 2019, with a 0.5-m (1.6 ft) reflecting telescope atop Mauna Loa in Hawaii. The images were taken as part of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). At the time of its discovery, the comet was in the constellation Ursa Major as viewed from Earth. Larry Dennau was the first to identify the object's cometary appearance, placing the object on the Minor Planet Center's Possible Comet Confirmation Page, alerting other astrometrists. Further observations over subsequent days identified a coma; a comet tail became increasingly apparent as observations continued.

During January to March 2020, the comet is located in the constellation Ursa Major. In April when skies become dark it will be visible halfway up in the north-northwest sky in the evening in the constellations of Perseus and Camelopardalis and in June it will be visible in Orion in the north-northeast sky at morning and potentially visible with the naked eye.

Comet ATLAS continues to be much brighter than expected. Some predictions for its peak brightness now border on the absurd. If it has a big nucleus with large stones of frozen gas, then yes; We could get a very bright Comet. Right now the Comet is releasing huge amounts of its frozen volatiles or gases. That's why it is brightening so fast, otherwise comet ATLAS might run out of gas, crumbling and fading as it approaches the Sun. current best estimates of the comet peak brightness in May range from magnitude +1 to -5. If the comet hits the high end of that range, a bit brighter than Venus. Comet McNaught or C/2006 P1 performed that very trick 13 years ago. On January 13, 2007, it swooped past the sun shining at a brilliant magnitude of -5.5. The absurdly-bright comet was visible at high on noon with its tail jutting across the blue sky.

Planet Venus is at its highest position in Sky. The Nibiru cataclysm is a supposed disastrous encounter between the Earth and a large planetary object (either a collision or a near-miss) that certain groups believed would take place in the early 21st century. Believers in this doomsday event usually refer to this object as Nibiru or Planet X. The idea was first put forward in 1995 by Nancy Lieder, founder of the website ZetaTalk.