Photos show rare comet streaking across sky in once-in-a-lifetime moment

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — An ancient, rare comet is passing by Earth, and some people in the Pittsburgh area have seen the once-in-a-lifetime comet streaking across the sky.

On Tuesday, KDKA-TV's Jessica Guay and Ian Smith captured the comet, known as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, in the sky. The incredible comet was closest to Earth on Oct. 13, but it will be visible in the sky after sunset each day through the end of October.

The best time to view the comet is between today and Oct. 24.

What is the Atlas comet?

NASA said the Oort Cloud comet, called C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, was spotted in 2023 by observers in China and a telescope in South Africa.

NASA said the comet was expected to "come within approximately 44 million miles of Earth" on Oct. 12.

How to see the Atlas comet

Experts told KDKA-TV that the comet is visible to the naked eye, but using binoculars or a telescope will help.

It's "highly unlikely" it will be visible in daylight hours, NASA said, so look for it after sunset, weather permitting.

"Right after sunset looking west, maybe a little south, you should see the comet right as the glare of the sun goes away, and a coma, the dirty snowball part has a big, long trail, which is always pointed away from the sun," astronomer Diane Turnshek, a physics lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University and instructor in the University of Pittsburgh's Physics and Astronomy Department, told KDKA-TV last week.

You can take pictures of the comet on your phone using night mode /longer exposure times.

If you don't see this rare astronomical event, you're out of luck.

"This one comes about every once every 80,000 years. Might seem like a lot to you, but the Neanderthals were walking the Earth at the time so they might have seen it," astronomer Simonetta Frittelli, a Duquesne University physics associate professor, told KDKA-TV last week.