Comet C/2025 R3 PANSTARRS Passes by Earth | NOAA GOES-19 Weather Satellite
A United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite caught a celestial visitor! As Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) passed by Earth during April 24–25, 2026, the Compact Coronagraph (CCOR1), a solar telescope, on NOAA's GOES-19 weather satellite tracked its path. The comet was discovered last September by the Haleakalā Observatory in Hawaii.
C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) is a hyperbolic Oort cloud comet. It passed perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on April 19, 2026, when it was 0.499 AU (75 million km) from the Sun. The comet was discovered by PanSTARRS in images obtained on September 8, 2025.
The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) located at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, USA, consists of astronomical cameras, telescopes and a computing facility that is surveying the sky for moving or variable objects on a continual basis, and also producing accurate astrometry and photometry of already-detected objects. The Pan-STARRS Project is a collaboration between the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Maui High Performance Computing Center and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The NASA Near Earth Object Observation Program is the main funder for the operation of the Pan-STARRS telescopes.
A coronagraph is a type of telescope designed to block the light from a star or the solar disk, allowing astronomers to observe the faint emissions from the surrounding region, such as the solar corona. It was invented in 1930 by French astronomer Bernard Lyot and is primarily used to study solar phenomena like prominences and the corona itself. By using a disk to obscure the bright light, coronagraphs enable the observation of nearby celestial objects that would otherwise be hidden.
Capture Dates: April 24-25, 2026
Release Date: April 27, 2026
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