In a rare event for astronomers everywhere, “Atlas,” a huge comet roughly half the size of our sun, is predicted to appear brighter than Venus as seen from Earth by the end of April 2020. For stargazers, the appearance of Atlas may very well be the most exciting cosmic show to grace the night skies in years.
The comet was originally discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Hawaii, an automated sky survey that searches for potential Earth-crossing asteroids, on Dec. 28, 2019, Astronomy.com reported. The Atlas comet was named after the system itself.
