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Comet C/2025 F2 (SWAN): Lookout for the Newly Discovered Bright Comet

There’s new visitor speeding towards sun, and is visible with small telescope or binocular throughout this month. Comet C/2025 F2 (SWAN) is newly discovered comet by Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) camera instrument aboard on European Space Agency’s of Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) co-discovered by Vladimir Bezugly and Michael Mattiazzo.


Since its discovery, amateur observers and scientist across the world are making dozens of observations of it. By calculating it path we have estimated it to have parabolic path and will be closest approach to Earth and Sun on 1st of May.

Bright comet with a glowing blue tail streaks through a starry night sky, creating a serene and majestic cosmic scene.
Comet C/2025 F2 SWAN. Image Credit & Copyright: Dan Bartlett

Understanding Comets

Comets are

  • icy, rocky remnants left over from the formation of the solar system over 4.6 billion years ago.

  • Most of them reside in the Kuiper Belt or the distant Oort Cloud, and only occasionally do gravitational nudges send them hurtling toward the inner solar system.

  • As a comet approaches the Sun, the increase in temperature causes its surface ices to vaporize, creating a glowing coma and sometimes one or more tails made of gas and dust that can stretch millions of kilometers into space.

  • These tails always point away from the Sun, shaped by solar radiation and the solar wind.


C/2025 F2 (SWAN)

The comet C/2025 F2 (SWAN) appears as a small green sphere, which means its coma has reactive molecules called diatomic carbon (C2).

Long exposure images by amateur astronomers are also showing a faint tail that extends for more than two moon diameters.

When And where ?

  • C/2025 F2 (SWAN) will be visible in early morning before sunrise in northeastern horizon till 1st of May as it will approach the Sun.

  • As April goes, comet F2 will appear lower and lower in altitude making it harder to observe at last weeks of April.

  • It will pass through constellation of Andromeda in mid-April and in Triangulum and Aries in last weeks of April.

  • By May, even if it survived the perihelion, it will be harder to observe in Northern Hemisphere, but will be easier and will appear in evening skies.

  • Since comets path is kind of in North to South direction, after perihelion it will show better visibility in Southern Hemisphere in Evening twilight hours.  

Star map with constellations in blue, a red curved line, and yellow circle marking a point. Text reads "01-05-25" and "01-03-25."

Catlike behaviors of comets and expectations from C/2025 F2 (SWAN)

At its current brightness to catch a glimpse of F2,

  • find a dark sky location with a clear view of the northeastern horizon just before dawn.

  • Use apps like Stellarium to track its position night by night.

  • A small telescope (4–6 inches) or even 10x50 binoculars should be sufficient if skies are clear.

  • The latest reported magnitude is around 8 to 7.5 and improving, with predictions that it may become visible to the naked eye around magnitude of 3-5.


But comets often behave erratically to the point where astronomer David Levy once said, “Comets are like cats: they have tails, and they do precisely what they want.”


The comet was expected to reach a peak magnitude of about 5 in early May 2025, however its brightening stagnated in mid April, indicating the comet possibly disintegrated before reaching perihelion.

Their brightness can change suddenly, so in other words, we can’t count on it giving us a spectacular view like C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-Atlas) or C/2023 E3 (ZTF), but there’s still hope that it might become a bright one.

 
 
 

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