# Breaking comets


![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1743070606295/0c3a04c1-346f-4eba-a852-34706a9541e4.jpeg)  
Comet Atlas, portrait by **Tim Connolly**

First of all I start from Atlas, a new comet that is coming here! It will arrive at the end of May, passing only 0.25 AU from the sun. It could be a good opportunity for amateurs to observe a new object in the sky, but there is a not so reassuring news:

> [New data](https://spaceweather.com/images2020/06apr20/lightcurve.png) from astronomers around the world show that the once-promising comet is beginning to fade.
> 
> * * *
> 
> \- via [spaceweather.com](https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2020/04/07/comet-atlas-is-breaking-up/)

This is not the only bad news: the first insterstellar comet, 2I/Borisov, that it goes away from the Sun with a speed of about 17 km/s (it will reach a speed of 32 m/s), seems to have lost a piece of the core ([ATel #13611](http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=13611), [ATel #13613](http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=13613)).