Bengaluru residents, and nearly the whole of Indian media, was elated after splendid shades of pink, green yellow and more were visible in the evening sky. To be sure, the site was fit to behold. The beautiful hues were sure to mesmerise anyone, perhaps enough to eagerly connect them with a comet.
Bengaluru ☄️
I didn’t know that this effect was caused by a comet that visited the solar system after 80,000 years.
Out of my interest in photography, I took a picture, and when I checked my Instagram today, I saw a post about it and verified the details. It was beautiful.” pic.twitter.com/5euF1Lvuc5
— yadhu (@__iamyadhu) October 2, 2024
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS), is currently visible to the naked eye from the surface of the Earth. Astronomy enthusiasts can spot the comet in early hours of the day before the Sun brightens the sky. The comet was discovered just last year and experts have said that it comes close to Earth once every 80,000 years.
Bengaluru sky light up in colors when a comet passes above. What a rare sight and phenomenon. Beautiful. pic.twitter.com/XVpCqRXgmC
— Satya Vachan (@zippynathan1974) October 1, 2024
Currently, the comet is more than 106,910,000 kilometres away from the Earth.
The outermost layer of the Earth’s atmosphere stretches up to just around 10,000 kilometres from the Earth’s surface.
So Did The Faraway Comet Cause Effects In Bengaluru Sky?
We spoke with Dr Aniket Sule, a scientist who is also an Associate Professor with Mumbai’s prestigious Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).
Dr Sule told us that when comets pass through space, they emit large amount of dust. If Earth passes through this dust, the atmosphere indeed interacts with these particles and phenomena similar to meteor shower can take place.
However, the reports and images shown in Indian media on October 1 and October 2, did not appear to show a meteor shower, but a rainbow-like distribution of colours.
When we showed these images to Dr Sule, he unequivocally ruled out connection between the colours and any effect caused by the comet.
“This appears like some atmospheric phenomenon and is not connected with the comet,” he told FPJ.
Then What Caused Formation Of These Colours?
“Answer to this can come after an investigation,” said Dr Sule who also underlined need to consider possible local events around Bengaluru like forest fire etc. He underlined than more information needed to be gained and more observations needed to be made before commenting upon the exact cause of these colours in the evening sky.
But what he, along with a few members in the FPJ newsroom, was certain about was that these colours were NOT caused by the comet.
