That’s no moon. Dramatic Comet Outburst Could Last Weeks:
A comet that suddenly brightened earlier this week has astronomers around the globe fascinated. And the show could go on for some time.Comet Holmes, discovered in 1892, had in recent years been visible only through telescopes until a dramatic outburst made it visible to the naked eye. In fewer than 24 hours, it brightened by a factor of nearly 400,000.
It has now brightened by a factor of a million times what it was before the outburst, a change “absolutely unprecedented in the annals of cometary astronomy,” said Joe Rao, SPACE.com’s Skywatching Columnist.
The comet is now rivaling some of the brighter stars in the sky.
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The comet is located among the stars of the constellation Perseus, which is about halfway up in the northeast sky in the evening. Perseus is almost directly overhead by around 2 a.m. local daylight time and remains well up in the northwest at dawn.