Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, detected in January 2023 by telescopes at the Tsuchinshan Observatory, in China, and confirmed by the ATLAS telescope in South Africa, passed through the sky on Sunday.

Speaking to Lusa, astrophysicist Nuno Peixinho explained that if sky observation conditions remained cloudless, the comet could be seen with the naked eye in Portugal on Sunday "40 minutes after sunset, looking west, that is, at 7:35 pm".

Emphasising that the "window of opportunity" for this was very short, he explained that after 8pm the comet would already be "very low on the horizon" and it would be "very difficult to see it".

The astrophysicist also drew attention so that this "would not be confused" with "the strong brightness of the planet Venus", which, on the horizon, was to his left. The comet in question is almost 71 million kilometers from Earth and just over 82 million kilometers from the Sun, when "the average distance from Earth to the Sun, called an astronomical unit, is about 150 million kilometers."