Possible Meteor Scatter Opportunity in October
Dick Bingham
In Early October, Earth Will Pass Through the Orbital Debris Stream of an Extremely Large Comet That Was Just Discovered
(End of the American Dream)—Scientists have just discovered another giant space rock that is rapidly heading in our direction. They think that it will fly past us at a distance of just 0.26 astronomical units, and if they are correct about that it won’t hit us. But we are being warned that Earth will pass through the orbital debris stream of this extremely large comet, and that could result in a significant meteor storm. This comet was first identified less than a week ago, and so any projections that have been made so far could change. It is officially being called “C/2025 R2 (SWAN)”, and it is already “bright enough to detect using binoculars”…
There’s a new, fairly bright comet in the sky, discovered less than a week ago, on Friday, September 12, 2025. The Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) instrument on the SOHO spacecraft detected it. And it’s relatively bright (as comets go), shining at around magnitude 6.2, as of September 16. That’s not quite bright enough to see with the eye, especially considering that the brightness of a comet isn’t point-like as stars are. Comets are “fuzzy.” But it’s bright enough to detect using binoculars, or a camera with a 200-mm lens.
The International Astronomical Union has now given the comet an official name: C/2025 R2 (SWAN). It was originally and temporarily designated SWAN25B.
Prior to last Friday, astronomers had no idea that this giant space rock even existed.
Now it is getting a ton of attention, and it is being anticipated that it will put on quite a show during the month of October.
But nobody knows quite what to expect, because as one astronomer has aptly noted, comets tend to “do precisely what they want”…
What can we expect from the comet in the coming weeks? “I remembered the words of the famous Comet Hunter David Levy,” says Bezugly. “Comets are like cats; that have tails, and do precisely what they want.”
What we do know is that this is a very large comet with a very large tail.
In fact, we are being told that it has a tail that is approximately 5 times the length of the diameter of the moon…