Newly discovered comet 'Lemmon' may be visible to the naked eye this month

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A newly discovered comet, dubbed "Lemmon," is gearing up for a close flyby of Earth later this month and could even become visible to the naked eye, some researchers claim. However, Lemmon may end up looking more like a different citrus fruit, thanks to its lime-green glow.

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is a nonperiodic comet, which means it has a variable orbital period that spans over a millennium and is hard to predict. Observations hint that the comet currently orbits the sun every 1,350 years and spends a majority of this time lurking within the Oort Cloud — the giant shell of comets and other icy objects at the very edge of the solar system.

Lemmon was first spotted on Jan. 3 by researchers at the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter observatory in Arizona's Santa Catalina Mountains as the comet was speeding toward the inner solar system at up to 130,000 mph (209,000 km/h). But it has largely gone under the radar until now, thanks to other more notable comets, such as SWAN R2 and the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, which are in the midst of their own solar flybys.

https://www.livescience.com/space/comets/newly-discovered-comet-lemmon-may-be-visible-to-the-naked-eye-this-month-but-it-will-look-more-like-a-lime