In the Spotlight of the Universe

Or at least it would be if other life existed.

P/Comet Holmes, the most incredible comet we've yet seen. In a matter of hours this comet went from brightness +17 to +3. For those of you who aren't sure what this means, it means that in a matter of hours it became 400,000 times brighter than it originally was.

Why? Your guess is as good as everyone else's.

• Did it lose it's outer crust and therefore break off dirty ice to reveal cleaner ice beneath it which would catch the sun's light better?
• Did it hit an asteroid, resulting in fragmentation and the pieces lost their dirty layer?
• Was there a build up of gas inside that burst through the crust?
• Did it impact the meteor stream?
• Were there chemical reactions in the nucleus that disrupted the comet?

God only knows... and in the meantime they astronomers try to guess.

This little dude, who was originally more faint, was discovered by Edwin Holmes after a much smaller outburst on November 16, 1982. It was closest to the sun on May 4, 2007 so now it's heading back out, and astronomers are using this to search for a tail. Comets have tails from gas and dust that point in the opposite direction of the sun, so we know where to look for the tail and from more recent pictures it seems that one is starting to show. A very distinct tail while Holmes is still this bright = VERY happy astronomers.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for a still-bright comet and significant tail sighting!