Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) and The Orion Nebula: View from Chile

Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) and The Orion Nebula: View from Chile

Astrophotographer Alan C. Tough: "Still sporting an impressive ion tail, comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) is seen here passing by the Great Nebula in Orion, M42."

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.

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, extending along a narrow strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The country shared borders with Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south.

Image Credit: Alan C. Tough 

Remote Capture Location: Deep Sky Chile, Rio Hurtado Valley, Chile 

Alan's website: https://www.flickr.com/photos/7776810@N07/

Date: May 9, 2026

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