{"id":77227,"date":"2026-05-04T12:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/may\/04\/rare-comet-new-zealand"},"modified":"2026-05-04T12:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:25:07","slug":"rare-comet-to-flash-through-new-zealand-skies-before-it-disappears-for-170000-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=77227","title":{"rendered":"Rare comet to flash through New Zealand skies \u2013 before it disappears for 170,000 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the next two weeks stargazers have a chance to spot the blue-green orb and smudgy tail of comet known as C\/2025 R3 PanSTARRS <\/p>\n<p>A comet formed on the edges of the solar system will grace southern skies over the next fortnight, giving viewers a rare chance to glimpse it before it disappears from view for another 170,000 years.<\/p>\n<p>The comet \u2013 known as C\/2025 R3 PanSTARRS \u2013 had been travelling through the northern hemisphere but has \u201cswung around the sun\u201d and is now visible in the south, said Josh Aoraki, an astronomer at Te Whatu Stardome in Auckland, New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/may\/04\/rare-comet-new-zealand\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the next two weeks stargazers have a chance to spot the blue-green orb and smudgy tail of comet known as C\/2025 R3 PanSTARRS A comet formed on the edges of the solar system will grace southern skies over the next fortnight, giving viewers a rare c&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2286,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,301,3542,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-astronomy","category-comets","category-new-zealand"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77228,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77227\/revisions\/77228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}