(Image credit: Gianluca Masi / Virtual Telescope Project)
A space expert recently focused his telescope above Manciano, Italy, and spotted something spectacular: a radiant comet apparently entangled in the spiraling route of a meteor, gleaming in the same area of space like a celestial striped pole.
Considering the vast distance separating the close-up meteor and the distant comet, the likelihood of capturing such a fortunate picture was (pardon the wordplay) extremely improbable.
“In this image, the meteor’s lingering glow gives the impression of enveloping the comet’s ion tail — a sheer perspective phenomenon,” astronomer Gianluca Masi, creator of The Virtual Telescope Project and the photographer who obtained the remarkable picture, noted in a statement. “The former is an atmospheric effect caused by the meteor, whereas the comet itself was roughly 100 million kilometers [62 million miles] distant.”
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The comet observed here is C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) — among a trio of comets currently captivating the solar system, together with Comet R2 (SWAN) and the interstellar wanderer 3I/ATLAS. Comet Lemmon, which achieved its closest proximity to Earth on Oct. 21, is the most brilliant of the group and has remained sufficiently visible to be detected through basic telescopes and stargazing binoculars during the subsequent days.
Masi noticed the comet during the night of Oct. 24. Its lengthy, azure tail — the outcome of ionized gas that has been vaporized from the comet’s exterior and propelled away by the solar wind — was obviously noticeable. However, for a few minutes throughout Masi’s observations, another streamer-like structure materialized nearby: the faint vestiges of an ion pathway descended by a meteor speeding through Earth’s atmosphere.
Displayed here as a gold streak curling around the comet, the meteor trail evolved continuously throughout Masi’s observations, briefly seeming like a segment of the comet itself. In truth, the trail stems from chemical processes in the atmosphere activated by the meteor’s incredibly fast transit.
“The phenomenon is linked to the ionization of molecular oxygen within the atmosphere induced by the meteor occurrence, followed by its recombination, which yields the discharge of light at that wavelength,” Masi explained.
Even though meteors usually progress at velocities exceeding 100,000 mph (160,000 km/h), their trails can persist in the sky for several minutes, as stated by NASA. Throughout this period, winds moving at differing altitudes can sculpt those trails into looping streamer configurations akin to the one showcased here. Masi also released a time-lapse clip of the meteor event on YouTube exhibiting how the radiant trail lashed through the heavens ahead of the comet for several minutes.
Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon and red meteor afterglow – YouTube
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The event of spiral meteor trails hasn’t been broadly investigated, though they’re regarded as rather uncommon. A collection of papers published in the 1980s and 1990s predicted that solely 0.5% of observed meteors produce a nonlinear trail. However, this figure isn’t fully certain and could’ve been impacted by suboptimal camera configurations employed to document meteor trails at that time.
The yearly Orionid meteor display — an occasion sparked by the remains of Halley’s comet — peaked on Oct. 20-21, coinciding with the evening Comet Lemmon attained its highest illumination. While the shower is declining, it’ll endure until Nov. 7, implying more “shooting stars” comparable to the one Masi captured are conceivable at night. Keep an eye toward the heavens, and perhaps you’ll witness a “miracle” of your own.
Brandon SpecktorSocial Links NavigationEditor
Brandon functions as the space/physics editor at Live Science. His compositions have surfaced in The Washington Post, Reader’s Digest, CBS.com, the Richard Dawkins Foundation website, and various other platforms. He possesses a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona, accompanied by minors in journalism and media arts. He derives the greatest pleasure from composing about space, geoscience, and the enigmas of the universe.
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