A comet discovered last year as it approached our solar system is now fully visible in Colorado’s night sky.

C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS can be seen over the southwestern horizon after sunset. The comet, also known as the Oort Cloud comet, was identified by observers from China’s Tsuchinshan – or ‘Purple Mountain’ – Observatory and an ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) telescope in South Africa, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It was officially named in honor of both observatories.

Based on its trajectory and calculated orbit, scientists believe the comet will not be seen by human eyes for another 80,000 years.

The comet successfully made its closest pass to the sun on September 27 and came within 45 million miles of Earth on October 12, according to NASA. It gradually becomes more visible for the Northern Hemisphere

They were concerned that the comet would not survive perihelion, or its passage through the closest range to the Sun. Comet ISON disintegrated in November 2013 in the heat and gravity of the sun. The same thing happened in 1973 with Comet Kohoutek.

“Comets are more fragile than people may realize, thanks to the effects of passing close to the Sun on their internal water ice and volatiles such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide,” said NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, chief of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is enormous and long. Its head currently has a diameter of no less than three kilometers. The tail, which is made up mostly of small pieces of ice and dust, is believed to be as long as 30 million kilometers.

Peak viewing is expected to last until October 26.