On Monday, October 14, I found myself appropriately placed in space and time, for a change, thanks to my partner, Heidi. We already live in the rural town of Leavenworth, Kansas, but decided that if we were going to get a decent view of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (aka Comet C/2023 A3), we would need to drive beyond the reach of the lights of the prison a mere two blocks away.
”O-o-o-h, this looks like a great place to stop. The road is wide enough that we can pull over, too.”
We drove down the road a little way beyond the intersection, gravel grinding under our wheels until we parked. We got out, and focused on the dimming light of the western horizon.
”I know you’re not supposed to be able to see it with the naked eye….”
”Some people say you can,” Heidi responded.
We aimed our phone cameras in the general direction of where the comet was supposed to appear, about forty-five minutes after sunset.
”Oh, I saw it on my screen right before I took the picture,” Heidi exclaimed.
"Where,” I asked anxiously, “in relation to that bright star (turns out it was Venus we were seeing)?”
”It’s between that one and the one to the far right, about midway between the two.”
I found it, and as it got darker, the comet resolved itself. The tail appeared as a great, vertical smudge, like a faint cloud, with the head nearer the horizon.We enjoyed the moment in relative silence, save for the call of a distant Killdeer punctuating the night from the farm fields that stretched out before us. Louder than the bird was the intensity of moonlight, so shockingly bright that I initially cursed the lunar illumination as a nearby streetlight.
”Ok, I’m sufficiently wowed,” I said, as a way to suggest that we leave. I knew Heidi was getting cold, and the comet was not getting any brighter. The trip home gave me time to recount other comet memories.
In about fourth grade, I played the tail of Halley’s Comet in a school play. I remember that I couldn’t wait for 1986, when this most celebrated of comets would return. Boy, what a disappointment. Without a telescope, it could not be seen, and even then, no one thought it was that spectacular.
Given the defeated expectations around Halley’s Comet, I barely took notice of Hale-Bopp in 1991. I was living in Cincinnati at the time, in a neighborhood at the top of a hill on the west side. One evening, as I was taking the garbage out to the dumpster behind our apartment building, I just happened to look up.
I remember exclaiming surprise, out loud, as a couple was coming out of the building, and pointing up.
”That is amazing,” said one of them, or words to that effect.
Comets don’t come around very often, let alone within sight of anyone on our planet, and fewer people still have access to the optics needed to properly view them. You could easily never see a single one simply because you lived in the wrong century, or without adequate enhancement of your optical limits.
I don’t know what the attraction is, for me, as I am not a stargazer, let alone an astronomer or astrophysicist. Maybe it is all about the tail. That weeping brilliance perhaps reminds me of bird plumes, or the streamers that are mayfly tails. Comets are just as ephemeral as those insects.
Maybe it is the path of comets that appeals to me as a writer. The trajectory of comets is literally a narrative arc that spans lightyears. Each one has an origin story, and a journey that makes Homer’s The Odyssey pale by comparison. That we know anything of these cosmic iceballs is remarkable.
My curiosity over ATLAS is overwhelmed by sheer awe. Some things I want to remain mysterious, and comets are solidly in that category. Thank you for the visit, C/2023 A3, you will not soon be forgotten, at least not until the next aurora borealis.
