Stargazers had a year full of treats as several celestial visitors came towards Earth, some of them setting up a wonderful scene in the night sky. There were comets, eclipses and more that caught the attention of the people on Earth. The most amazing celestial events in 2024 were the meteor and asteroid strikes that were seen by several people across the world. Here are some beautiful celestial wonders that stargazers could not get enough of in 2024.
Total Solar Eclipse
North America witnessed a total solar eclipse on April 8. It spanned from Mexico’s Pacific coast to Newfoundland, Canada. It was called the Great North American Eclipse. The eclipse started over the South Pacific Ocean with totality first reported from Mexico’s Pacific coast. It then moved towards the United States, covering Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
Comet 12P/Pons–Brooks
This comet was in the skies over Earth in the first half of this year, with its closest approach coming on June 2. It was also famously known as Devil Comet because of the “horns” it developed following multiple explosions.
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It is a periodic comet and takes 71 years to complete one orbit. Such comets are also known as Halley-type comets.
Comet 13P/Olbers
This was another once-in-a-lifetime comet with an orbital period of 69 years. It is also a Halley-type comet. Such comets have a period between 20 and 200 years. It was discovered on March 6, 1815, by Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers. It later came close to Earth in 1887 and then again in 1956. The comet made its closest approach to the Sun on June 30, 2024.
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It later started becoming even brighter and came to its nearest point to Earth on July 20. It was the brightest comet in the sky at that time.
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)
The highlight of the year 2024 was Comet A3 or Comet Atlas. It was visible to the naked eye in the middle of October, with stargazers snapping amazing pictures of the comet. It was just 43,911,824 miles from Earth at its closest point. It had astronomers excited for weeks before it paid us a visit. At one point, some feared that it might fizzle out near the sun and might not return to Earth. However, all these reports were later proven wrong as the comet not only survived but stayed in the skies above Earth for days.
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Even astronauts at the International Space Station were able to catch a glimpse of the comet.
The comet that did not make it
Comet C/2024 S1 (ATLAS), a stargazing comet, was expected to become the second visitor in October. However, the sungrazer comet that belonged to the Kreutz family burnt out near the Sun.
Asteroid and meteorite strikes
In August, a meteorite hit South Africa. People saw a streak of bright light in the sky over St Francis Bay on Sunday (August 25) morning. It broke up into a bright fireball. Professor Roger Gibson from the Wits School of Geosciences said that it was similar to “a rocky asteroid about the size of a car entering Earth’s atmosphere at very high speed.” A sonic boom was heard as far away as Plettenberg Bay, over 200 km from Gqberha. Ground tremors were also reported in the area.
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There were at least four asteroids that were caught mere hours before impact in 2024. On September 4, the first imminent impactor was reported over the Philippines. Asteroid 2024 RW1 was discovered by research technologist Jacqueline Fazekas with the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey, just hours before it collided. It burnt up in a green fireball, with many people spotting it.
The second such asteroid was reported near California on Oct 22. It was around three feet in diameter and was initially named A11dc6D. It was later officially called 2024 UQ. The asteroid impacted Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean and thus wasn’t seen by people. It burst into a bright fireball about 1,000 km off the California coast and was spotted by NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).
On Dec 3, an asteroid hit the skies over Siberia. It measured around 1.6 to four feet, about the size of a small bicycle tyre. It was initially named C0WEPC5 and was later officially designated 2024 XA1. It came to notice only hours before impact. The European Space Agency saw the asteroid at 4:27 am ET (2:57 pm IST) and issued an alert, stating that it might hit in the next few hours. also