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Solar Blasts Just Ripped Off an Incoming Comet’s Tail

Don’t worry, it grows back. Comet Nishimura’s coma recovered quickly after a solar storm caused a remarkable «disconnection event.»

A comet’s regular run at the sun is dicey business, and the most promising space snowball of the year is already feeling the heat as it cruises toward Earth and our local star. 

Comet C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) was first spotted last month by Hideo Nishimura, an amateur astronomer in Japan, using only a digital camera setup and a lot of skill. It’s set to make a close pass by Earth on Sept. 12 and then whip around the sun on Sept. 17 before being flung back out to deep space. If it survives that long. 

Comet Nishimura has been meeting some serious resistance in the form of blasts of charged particles and plasma issuing forth from a tumultuous sun. Observers like astrophotographer Michael Jaeger (see above) watched Saturday as a solar storm engulfed the comet and appeared to blow a portion of its tail away for a moment. 

Here’s a more dramatic example that was captured by NASA in 2007 of Comet Encke having its tail briefly stolen: 

«Researchers call this a disconnection event; it’s caused by a CME (or fast solar wind stream) hitting the comet,» former NASA astronomer Tony Phillips wrote at Spaceweather.com. «Nishimura’s tail has since grown back — but it might not last for long. More CMEs are heading its way.»

CME stands for coronal mass ejection, which is an eruption from the outer layers of the sun that often accompanies a solar flare. Think of it as a very strong gust of energetic wind coursing through space and causing electromagnetic chaos. This is the same force that causes auroras to light up the skies when it collides with Earth’s magnetic field. It can also influence other things in space, like asteroids and comets. 

The sun is currently building toward the peak of its roughly 11-year solar cycle, which means more frequent flares and CMEs. At least two more of the ejections Phillips mentioned issued forth from the sun’s corona on Tuesday, exploding in the direction of Comet Nishimura. 

How to catch the comet

All this rough space weather can be a bit distressing for skywatchers hoping to see the comet with the naked eye. Although the comet is still approaching Earth, now could be the ideal time to start looking for it. Nishimura is expected to be bright enough to see as soon as Sept. 8, but in the Northern Hemisphere it will appear near the horizon, making it a bit tougher to locate.

«It’s really best seen with binoculars or a telescope,» Alison Klesman, who holds a doctoratein astronomy, wrote for Astronomy.com. «But through those optics, it will dazzle.»

In other words, it’s going to be easier to spot in early morning skies with some sort of magnification, so you might as well start looking right away.

You can search for the comet in the constellation Leo an hour or two before sunrise. You can use apps like Stellarium, Star Walk or TheSkyLive to help locate it.

It’s very difficult to know what the future holds for a comet. They can travel for centuries from the edge of the solar system to make a single orbit around the sun. At the same time, they are fragile things with a tendency to disintegrate as they pass through the inner solar system. They’ve even been known to crash into Jupiter or the sun along the way. The dinosaurs may also have had a close encounter with one many millions of years ago. 

So with all the turbulence the sun is sending out lately, it’s good to get up early to try to see Comet Nishimura for yourself while it’s still holding itself together. Good luck!

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The Hottest Switch 2 Accessory Could Be… a Lap Desk

Commentary: How else will you use the Joy-Cons’ cool new mouse feature?

One of the most interesting rumors about the Nintendo Switch 2’s Joy-Cons was that you could use them like computer mice. Now that the feature has been confirmed in the April 2 Nintendo Direct, and we’ve seen it used for action and strategy games, it’s pretty clear: The most-needed accessory for the new Switch 2 is a lap desk. 

Given its rich history of introducing wacky new ways to control games, Nintendo can perhaps be forgiven for introducing a novel control function in a console that is otherwise largely identical to its predecessor. But the Switch 2 is a couch console when docked and freely roaming otherwise — rarely near a flat surface to use the Joy-Cons’ mouse functionality.

As a lap desk owner, fan and evangelizer, lap desks are the obvious answer to the mouse problem: portable around the house, multipurpose for work or play and somewhat affordable. Or at least, there are reasonable options that aren’t any pricier than the $90 Nintendo is asking for Switch 2 Joy-Cons. 

While yes, any flat surface will technically do, just look at the gameplay for Drag x Drive, where players are shown running their dual Joy-Cons up and back in rapid succession. That seems hard to do on a makeshift surface like a clipboard or container lid. And for strategy games like Civilization 7, imagine not having a wide surface to move around the map and click in and out of menus. 

Nintendo’s Treehouse stream for the launch game Drag x Drive showed how to use both Joy-Cons in mouse mode to move around. The presenter — playing on a desk — noted that players could run the controllers flat on their legs as alternative surfaces. 

As CNET’s Scott Stein noted in his hands-on with the Switch 2, using the Joy-Cons on his legs was «a little less tiring» than on a desk — but presumably this only works well for a game like Drag x Drive, which relies on forward-and-back motion rather than side-to-side (unless you get really good at wrapping around your legs).

It’s worth pointing out how few of the Switch 2’s launch games and those coming later have mouse functionality — right now, only Drag x Drive requires it, while Civ 7 and Metroid Prime 4 Beyond optionally use Joy-Cons in mouse mode. Mario Party Jamboree will have also added mouse functionality in its Switch 2 version. We’ll wait to see how many games truly take advantage of this control potential.

Admittedly, the $450 Switch 2 and $80 Mario Kart World prices are already ruffling feathers, so expecting gamers to pay more for furniture just to get basic functionality for certain games is a big ask. But for all those couch crusaders planning their most relaxing way to play, a lap desk is the best way to have your Switch 2 and mouse with it, too.

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