Astronomers are monitoring a new comet discovered just a few days ago by the ATLAS survey. It's so new, it doesn't have a name yet. Provisionally designated "A11bP7I," the comet appears to be a relatively large sungrazer on course to become a bright naked-eye object in late October. Dennis Möller, Michael Jäger and Gerald Rhemann photographed the new discovery last night in Namibia:
"We are here in Namibia to observe Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS," says Jäger. "The new sungrazing comet was discovered not far away, so we took a look. It is already 11th mag with a 2' green coma and a short tail."

The orbit and brightness of A11bP7I remind experts of Comet Lovejoy (C/2011 W3), a sungrazer that flew through the sun's atmosphere in Dec. 2011. Comet Lovejoy emerged from the close encounter intact and put on a spectacular show for amateur astronomers during the Christmas holidays of that year.

Like Lovejoy (pictured below), the new comet is a member of the Kreutz family. Kreutz sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a giant comet ~1000 years ago. Every day, several fragments pass by the sun and disintegrate; indeed, SOHO coronagraphs have discovered thousands of them. As a rule, they are very small, but A11bP7I could be an exception--a big fragment that survives the heat and becomes visible to the naked eye.
Experts have also noted a similarity between the orbits of A11bP7I and Great Comet Ikeya-Seki (C/1965 S1). In 1965, Ikeya-Seki became so bright when it passed by the sun that it was visible in broad daylight at magnitude -10. Japanese observers famously saw it at high noon.

Sungrazing comet expert Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab sounds a note of caution: "While I hope with all my heart for an Ikeya-Seki 2.0, this could be a smaller Kreutz fragment that has simply erupted a little ahead of schedule [making us think it is bigger and brighter than it actually is]. Comparisons with Ikeya-Seki should be treated with extreme caution, but something akin to Comet Lovejoy is certainly not out of the question"
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