CASPER, Wyo. - If you're a stargazer and kept a close eye above Wyoming skies on Monday night, you may have witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime cosmic display.
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is making its way past Earth as it travels the solar system, something that happened some 80,000 years ago. If the comet isn't kicked out of the solar system during its travels, it will be at least another 80,000 years before making its way back. In Casper, it could be seen at dusk in the western sky in spite of a nearly full moon and city lights. The comet was the brightest thing in the Wyoming's dark skies according to many photos taken away from city limits that were posted online late Monday.
According to NASA, this comet likely originated in the Oort Cloud, described as a large spherical shell of icy debris at the outer edge of our solar system. Atlas, which currently is some 44 million miles from Earth, was discovered in 2023 by observers in China's Tsuchinshan observatory and an ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) telescope in South Africa. It was named after both observatories, hence its rather clumsy name.
The comet is expected to become dimmer in the coming nights at it travels back into the depths of space.