Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas has an anti-tail!

Comet A3 has an anti-tail! Can you see it?

What's so special about an anti-tail? Well ... ordinary comet tails always point away from the sun. That's because they're created by solar radiation pressure and by solar wind streaming out from our star. But – as of Sunday – Comet A3 also has a rare anti-tail pointing toward the sun. An anti-tail appears as Earth crosses the comet’s orbital plane, as it has been since Sunday and will be through this evening. A discussion of A3's rare anti-tail can be found at EarthSky.

Here are a few photos of A3 with it's anti-tail. I was actually able to capture it in my photos from Monday (see Sky and Rockets: Additional Processing of Tsuchinshan-Atlas) but these are really excellent.

Yarelis Medina caught the anti-tail of Comet A3
on October 13, 2024, from Utuado, Puerto Rico.

By Anis Abdul
Pontotoc, TX, USA, Pontotoc, TX, United States
AstroBin