Comet Eruption Brightened Up 12P/Pons-Brooks (2024), Visible In Spring 2024

12P/Pons–Brooks is a periodic comet with an orbital period of 71 years. It fits the classical definition of a Halley-type comet with (20 years  period to less than 200 years), and is also one of the brightest known periodic comets, reaching an absolute visual magnitude ~5 in its approach to perihelion. Comet Pons-Brooks was discovered at Marseilles Observatory in July 1812 by Jean-Louis Pons.
The next perihelion passage is 21 April 2024, with closest approach to Earth being 1.55 AU (232 million km) on 2 June 2024. The comet is expected to brighten to about apparent magnitude 4.5.The comet nucleus is estimated to be around 30 km in diameter assuming it was not producing too much dust and gas during the 2020 photometry.

12P/Pons–Brooks may be the parent body of the weak December κ-Draconids meteor shower that is active from about November 29 to December 13.

On 10 June 2020 Pons–Brooks was recovered at apparent magnitude 23 by the Lowell Discovery Telescope when the comet was beyond the orbit of Saturn at 11.9 AU (1.78 billion km) from the Sun, with the uncertainty in the comet's heliocentric distance being roughly ±10000 km at the time. The comet underwent an outburst from magnitude 16–17 to magnitude 11–12 (brightening by ~100x) on 20 July 2023 when it was 3.9 AU from the Sun. The outburst resulted in the comet having a horseshoe shaped coma. It was probably created by the release of about 10 billion kilograms of dust and ice into space. The coma had expanded to a diameter of 600,000 kilometers by 5 August, having an expansion rate of 220 m/s. Although initially spherical, the coma became asymmetrical due to the effects of radiation pressure on the dust. The comet outburst again on 5 October 2023 from magnitude 15 to magnitude 11 (brightening by ~40x).