An astronomer not too long ago aimed his telescope above Manciano, Italy, and caught one thing unimaginable: a brilliant comet seemingly wrapped up within the corkscrewing path of a meteor, glittering in the identical patch of sky like a cosmic barber store pole.
With thousands and thousands of miles separating the foreground meteor and the background comet, the percentages of capturing such a fortuitous shot had been (excuse the pun) astronomically low.
“In this photograph, the meteor’s afterglow appears to coil around the comet’s ion tail — a pure perspective miracle,” astronomer Gianluca Masi, founding father of The Virtual Telescope Project and the photographer who captured the gorgeous shot, wrote in a statement. “The former is an atmospheric effect induced by the meteor, while the comet itself was about 100 million kilometers [62 million miles] away.”
The comet seen right here is C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) — one in every of three comets taking the photo voltaic system by storm proper now, together with Comet R2 (SWAN) and the interstellar customer 3I/ATLAS. Comet Lemmon, which reached its closest level to Earth on Oct. 21, is the brightest of the bunch and has remained seen sufficient to be seen by way of easy telescopes and stargazing binoculars for the next a number of days.
Masi noticed the comet on the night time of Oct. 24. Its lengthy, blue tail — the product of ionized fuel that is been vaporized off of the comet’s floor and blown away by the photo voltaic wind — was clearly seen. But for a number of minutes throughout Masi’s observations, one other streamer-like construction grew to become seen close to the comet: the wispy remnants of an ion path left by a meteor plummeting by way of Earth’s environment.
Seen right here as a golden line spiraling across the comet; the meteor path developed continuously over the course of Masi’s observations, briefly showing like part of the comet itself. In actuality, the path is a results of chemical reactions within the environment triggered by the meteor’s ultrafast passage.
“The phenomenon is associated with the ionization of molecular oxygen in the atmosphere caused by the meteor event, followed by its recombination, which produces the emission of light at that wavelength,” Masi mentioned.
While meteors usually transfer at greater than 100,000 mph (160,000 km/h), their trails can linger within the sky for a number of minutes, according to NASA. During this time, winds blowing at totally different altitudes can sculpt these trails into meandering streamer shapes just like the one seen right here. Masi additionally posted a time-lapse video of the meteor occasion on YouTube displaying how the glowing path whipped by way of the sky in entrance of the comet for a number of minutes.
The phenomenon of spiral meteor trails has not been extensively studied, however they’re thought of comparatively uncommon. A collection of papers published in the 1980s and 1990s estimated that solely 0.5% of noticed meteors depart a nonlinear path. However, this quantity is much from sure and will have been skewed by suboptimal digicam settings used to report meteor trails on the time.
The annual Orionid meteor bathe — an occasion triggered by the particles of Halley’s comet — peaked on Oct. 20-21, the identical night time Comet Lemmon was at its brightest. Although the bathe is waning, it should final till Nov. 7, that means extra “shooting stars” just like the one Masi caught are doable at night time. Keep your eyes on the skies, and possibly you will spot a “miracle” of your personal.