Anticipation is building for a rare sight during the April 8th #total #solar #eclipse. In addition to the sun's corona, there's going to be a #comet. 12P/Pons-Brooks will be close to the sun during totality, potentially visible to the naked eye inside the Moon's shadow.

Here's what it looks like right now:

Michael Jaeger photographed the comet from his backyard observatory in Austria on Feb. 16th. "The comet's tail is magnificent," he says. "It is currently more than 2.5 degrees long."

At the moment, 12P is invisible to the naked eye; you need a telescope to see it. However, it is approaching the sun for a close encounter in April. Between now and then, forecasters expect the comet's brightness to increase at least 40-fold to magnitude +4.0. That would make it a borderline naked-eye object just in time for the eclipse.

"Border-line naked eye" doesn't sound spectacular, but 12P may have a trick up its sleeve. The comet is famously variable, with surges in brightness that no astronomer can fully predict. 12P is festooned with ice geysers, old-faithful-like vents that spew plumes of gas and dust into space, cloaking the comet in a veil of sunlight-reflecting material. An eruption of one of these geysers during (or even around the same time as) the #solar-eclipse could catapult it into the realm of magnificent.

https://spaceweather.com/