NASA Tracks Comet SWAN in Historic 40-Day Timelapse

NASA's PUNCH mission has made a historic achievement by tracking Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) for nearly 40 days, capturing images every four minutes, marking what may be the longest and most frequent observation of a comet to date.

According to a NASA announcement, this unprecedented level of monitoring was led by Craig DeForest, principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute. The time-lapse video, created from images taken between August 25 and October 2, 2025, shows Comet SWAN moving through the inner solar system, significantly demonstrating NASA's capabilities in monitoring celestial events.

The comet was first spotted by Ukrainian amateur astronomer Vladimir Bezugly and reached its closest point to the sun shortly after its discovery. Notably, the comet exhibited a bluish-green coma and a unique triangular shape, suggesting a fragmenting nucleus.

During this observation period, Comet SWAN also shared the sky with the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, which made a brief appearance in the PUNCH time-lapse, providing additional insights into the solar wind's effects on cometary tails, as explained by Gina DiBraccio from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

This robust tracking effort not only enhances our understanding of comets but also serves as a vital resource for future studies in space weather and its impacts on technology on Earth.