On October 8, golden comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) had its closest pass to the Sun. It was just 49 million kilometers (31 million miles) away, closer than Mercury, a distance that very few comets manage to escape intact. Many of us celebrated the successful survival of this chunk of interplanetary ice when it became visible again a few weeks later. But it seems that we have jinxed it. The comet has now broken apart. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

While 2025 hasn’t had a "Great Comet" like 1997's Hale-Bopp , it will certainly be remembered as a great year for comets. K1 (ATLAS), together with C/2025 R2 (SWAN) and C/2025 A6 (Lemmon), were at one point a magical trio of green comets in the sky. Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon)

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