Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard)

Description:

C/2021 A1 (Leonard) is the first comet discovered in 2021. It is estimated that its orbital period was over 80,000 years and, when it arrived in the vicinity of the planet Neptune in 2009, its orbit was affected and after its passage near the Sun in January 2022, the comet will be ejected from the solar system given its trajectory which is now slightly hyperbolic.

On November 24, 2021 at 5 a.m., it passed very close to the galaxy NGC 4631 (called the Whale Galaxy) which is 24 million light years from us. This is only a perspective effect because the comet was at that time only 13 million km away from us, or 6 “light minutes”.