“If the Big Dipper is visible by then, it is directly on a line between the (bottom) bowl of the dipper and the horizon,” Schleicher said. To see Comet NEOWISE, look northwest just below the Big Dipper about an hour after sunset. “Because it’s been moving away from the sun, it has been systematically getting fainter,” he said. “But space is so big, that even at that incredible speed, it still takes an appreciable number of days to traverse the sky.”Ĭomet NEOWISE – Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer – has been visible for days but it will be closest to Earth an hour after sunset Thursday.ĭespite the distance, said David Schleicher, a senior astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, the comet won’t be especially bright. “This comet, even though it’s traveling at enormous speeds, you’d think, given this incredible speed, that it’d be gone in an instant,” Mainzer said. Unlike a shooting star, viewers have a chance to view the comet for longer than a split second. The 3-mile wide ball of ice, dust and rock survived a close approach to the sun and is headed toward the outer edge of our solar system before starting another very long trip around the sun. “These are the asteroids and comets that come within about 1.3 times the distance from the Earth to the sun.” “We’re specifically interested in what we call ‘near-Earth objects,'” Mainzer said. PHOENIX – Arizona skywatchers have been over the moon about a comet that has graced the night sky since July 11.Ĭomet NEOWISE was discovered March 27 by Amy Mainzer, principal investigator on NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission, and her team at the University of Arizona. Comet NEOWISE as viewed from the International Space Station on July 5 as it rises above the sunlit limb of Earth while the ISS passes over Uzbekistan and central Asia.
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