Description

Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, also known as the Great Comet of 2024 and formally designated as C/2023 A3, is a comet from the Oort cloud discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory in China on 9 January 2023 and independently found by ATLAS South Africa on 22 February 2023. The comet passed perihelion at a distance of 0.39 AU on 27 September 2024, when it became visible to the naked eye. Tsuchinshan–ATLAS peaked its brightest magnitude on 9 October, shortly after passing the Sun, with a magnitude of −4.9 per reported observations at the Comet Observation Database (COBS).