NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Two comets are visible in October. All you need is a drive away from light pollution and binoculars or a telescope.
The comets that will be visible are the C/2025 R2 (SWAN), and C/2025 A6 (Lemmon). They both were discovered in 2025.
To see the comet SWAN, face west and look up 23 degrees (as of October 1) in the sky after sunset.
Comet Lemmon can be seen close to the Big Dipper through much of October. Look to the eastern sky just before sunrise.
According to NASA, comets are leftovers from the beginning of our solar system, around 4.6 billion years ago. They consist mostly of ice coated with dark organic material. This is why they’re often referred to as dirty snowballs.
Most comets originate from the Kuiper belt or the Oort cloud region, a zone far beyond Pluto’s orbit.
When they heat up due to solar radiation, they enter the outgassing phase. This effect causes dust and ice particles to fly into space, creating the dust and ion tails
Every comet has a main body that is called the nucleus. The dust and gas create the coma around the nucleus. The type of gas present will give the coma its color.
The comets are labeled with the year they were discovered and the name associated with an aspect of the discovery.
For instance, the Comet Lemmon was named after the Mount Lemmon Survey – the automated sky survey that was conducted at the Mount Lemmon Observatory, where the comet was discovered.
The Comet Swan was named after the swan instrument on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft. Swan stands for Solar Wind Anisotropies camera.
The next comet to watch for in November is C/2025 K1 ATLAS.
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