64: Almost A Good Comet

 
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Everyone's heard of the famous comets: Halley, McNaught, Hale-Bopp, the Great Comet of 1844. Ok, maybe not that last one. Earlier this year astronomers got very excited about a new comet, called Atlas, winging its way through the Solar System. The Great Comet of 2020? Atlas promised to be quite a show ... until it didn't.

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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

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Things we talked about in this episode:

Atlas: comet C/2019 Y4

ATLAS, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System

Hubble watches Atlas breaking up!

Comets have two tails

Great Comets in history

Comet McNaught in 2007

Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997

Halley’s Comet in 1986