By Dan Hicks

Comet C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) survived its September 17 1.9-light-minute perihelion pass around the sun and has been “slingshotted” out toward its distant aphelion in our solar system’s outer edge Oort Cloud – an eternal cometary conglomeration, arriving there in AD 2227, but returning to “us” in AD 2430 (“slingshotting” like a biblical David vs Goliath sling/ our 1st planet Mercury orbits 3.2 light-minutes from the sun).

Presently, “El cometa” is 12.7 light-minutes from us, receding at 60 kilometers per second and slowing, with a diminishing magnitude of 7.7 (it attained its highest magnitude at perihelion, mag 2.5/ our Planet Earth orbits 8.3 light-minutes from the sun). From our northern hemispheric perspective, the Comet Nishimura story has concluded. On September 26 in Cranbrook, having looped around the sun to become a sunset comet, Nishimura set conjointly with the sun itself.

Lead image: A Rocky Mountain sunrise skyline, as seen from Moir Park. Cranbrook on September 11, 2023 7 a.m. MDT. Subsumed by a brightening sky, Comet C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) eluded an audacious final attempt to observe it as an predawn apparition. Dan Hicks Photo

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