February 5, 2025
The same gravity that holds galaxies together and keeps planets in their orbits also held you to the Earth on the day you were born.
Comet G3 ATLAS Setting over a Chilean Hill
Birthday · February 5, 2025
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APOD published February 5, 2025 · Video still. Credit: Gabriel Muñoz. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Where is Comet ATLAS going? In the featured time-lapse video, the comet is not itself moving very much, but the Earth's rotation makes it appear to be setting over a hill. The Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) sequence was captured with an ordinary camera on January 22 from the Araucanía Region in central Chile. Comet ATLAS has been an impressive site in the evening skies of Earth's Southern Hemisphere over the past few weeks, so bright and awe-inspiring that it may eventually become known as the Great Comet of 2025. Unfortunately, Comet G3 ATLAS is not going anywhere anymore because its central nucleus broke up during its close pass to the Sun last month. Some of the comet's scattered remains of rocks and ice will continue to orbit the Sun, some in nearly the same outward section of the orbit that the comet's nucleus would have taken.
Image credit: Gabriel Muñoz