RIP Comet Leonard, a Bright Visitor in a Dark Time

Leonard will not be making its next 80,000-year-long journey around the Sun, as the mile-wide comet appears to have disintegrated in late February.Astronomer Gregory Leonard from the Catalina Sky Survey was the first human to spot the comet, which he did on January 3, 2021, a year before its perihelion on January 2, 2022. This closest approach to the Sun proved to be Leonard’s undoing, as all signs point to the demise of this dirty snowball — the brightest of the previous year.&ldquo