Discovered late last year, C/2019 Y4 ATLAS was supposed to be the brightest comet to decorate the night sky in decades, but now it appears to have suffered a major collapse.
C/2019 Y4 ATLAS has fragmented into three or four pieces, according to astronomer Gianluca Masi from the Virtual Telescope Project 2.0, a group that uses remotely controlled telescopes to observe space. Images taken on April 11 and 12 show discernible pieces inside the comet’s inner coma, indicating a recent breakup event.
This is a real shame, because C/2019 Y4 ATLAS was set to be the brightest comet in the night sky since Hale-Bopp in 1997. The comet was supposed to become visible to the naked eye later this month, but this doesn’t seem likely now, given the serious fragmentation event.
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