Two newly -released comets will make their closest approach to Earth this month.

Comets are made of ice, frozen gases and rocks, and as they travel near stars such as the sun, their heat forces them to release gas and dust, which creates their characteristic tails.

Researchers identified Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon on January 3, while C/2025 R2 Swan He was recently identified for the first time on September 10 during his close approach to the sun, according to Qicheng Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher studying small body astronomy at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaf, Arizona.

For the enthusiastic observers of heaven, it is the right time to locate comets with binoculars or telescopes, because they both have a long period, oval orbits that drive them around the sun, which means that They will only be close to Earth for a limited period of time.

The Comet Swan will not reappear for another 650 to 700 years, while Lemmon will remain out of view for 1,300 years, said Carrie Holt, a postdoctoral researcher and astronomer at the Las Cumbres Observatory, a global Network of Observatory.

“Swan is visible only early in the evening – as soon as he falls dark,” Quanzhi Ye, an alternate researcher at the Astronomy Department of the University of Maryland, wrote in an email. “Lemmon is now visible shortly before sunrise, but it will soon be visible only in the evenings and nights.”

Both comets appear near the sun as they appear from the earth, so there is only a short time every day to observe them, Yea added.

Swan will make his closest approach to Earth – at a distance of 38.6 million kilometers from us – On October 20, While Lemmon will swing 88.5 million kilometers from our planet On October 21said Ye.

Both comets look similar to the pictures, surrounded by green gas with long tails flowing behind them, Zhang said.

Astronomers are trying to observe both to learn more about long -term comets, who have or more or less or more.

The long -term comets have spent most of their time on the frozen edge of our solar system, in Oort’s cloud, a spherical shell of frozen bodies, Holt said. These comets were probably formed near giant planets such as Zeus and Saturn, before receiving a gravitational impulse on the outskirts of our solar system billions of years ago – where they are kept in deep freezing since then, he added.

“When someone is pushing back to the sun, we see materials that have changed little by the beginning of the solar system,” Holt wrote in an email. “As their ice begins to become solid to gas, we have a taste of the original building blocks of our solar system and we have the opportunity to learn how planetary systems like ours are combined.”

Characteristics of comets

The comet Lemmon is visible to those living in Northern hemispherewhile the Swan favors the observers of heaven to Southern hemisphere – But it also becomes visible in the northern hemisphere, said Ye.

Lemmon is expected to become brighter in the coming weeks until early November, while Swan will probably fade shortly, he added.

Also, the Lemmon comet will hide behind the sun in November and December and then become visible only for observers in the southern hemisphere.

Ukrainian amateur astronomer Vladimir Bezugli discovered comet Swan through images of Solar Wind Anisotropies, on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a common program of NASA and the European Space Service to study the sun.

Comet Swan

Lemmon was identified by the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona as part of the Catalina sky research, a NASA funded project and scanning the night sky for objects near Earth, such as asteroids, which could be a risk to the earth.

How to locate comets

Holt recommends that people use binoculars and observe from a dark area away from light pollution. Numerous applications can show where the comets are in real time, he said.

“You can even try to see it with your phone camera,” Holt said, “changing the settings to a larger exposure of a few seconds and targeting it in the sky.”

If the sky is not clear in your area on the night of October 20, the Virtual Telescope Project will share a live broadcast of both telescopes under the dark sky in Manciano, Italy.