The comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas, also called C/2023 A3, has arrived in the Saxon night sky. This “galactic snowball” can be observed shortly after sunset in the coming days. It came closest to Earth on Saturday. Now it is moving away again into the vastness of our solar system.
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Tsuchinshan Atlas is now rising a little higher in the night sky every day, but is also getting darker again due to the increasing distance from the sun. It’s still worth taking a look to the west in the evening.
A cosmic visitor came close to Earth on Saturday evening (October 12, 2024). It was particularly easy to see in Mehderitzsch (North Saxony) near Torgau.
Source: News5
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Not only the comet, but also the northern lights can currently be admired over Saxony. What would otherwise require you to travel far to the north of Europe to see the special natural spectacle does not currently require long journeys. The northern lights can currently be observed again and again in the local latitudes.
“We are currently recording maximum solar activity,” explains Peter Schilling from the Schkeuditz Observatory. “This only happens every eleven years and is currently the case.” However, it is not possible to predict exactly when the northern lights will be seen. In the past few weeks, the special lights have been visible from Leipzig several times.
“You could see the northern lights wonderfully north of Leipzig. Despite the light pollution, they were visible even in the city if you could see through the clouds,” describes Florin Stroe from the Eilenburg Observatory. “The green and red colors were clearly visible. Impressive,” says Gerold Riedl, an enthusiastic Northern Lights photographer from Mittweida.
Northern lights are caused by solar storms. When solar winds hit the Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, substances in it are irritated, explains Stroe. This causes light to be emitted in different bright colors. This happened several times on Friday night: According to Stroe, there were four to five solar storms within just two hours. These were also particularly strong and therefore very visible. The strongest storm had a magnitude of eight – the scale used to measure such storm strengths goes up to nine.
LVZ