Get ready for a once-in-an-every-6,000ish-years event.
A lot of people have been snapping great pictures of the comet during the past few days.
Комета NeoWise в небе моего города. В следующий раз вы можете её увидеть через 5000 лет …. pic.twitter.com/kWOEir4k7D
— Petrov Dmitry (@dmivip08) July 17, 2020
Neowise Sunday evening over the Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy pic.twitter.com/Tbt9I3OP6n
— Thierry Legault (@ThierryLegault) July 14, 2020
Single shot of #cometneowise from last night. I think I can just about see the ion tail 🤔. Taken with a DSLR using 300mm lens on Star Adventurer tracking mount from the #NorthYorkMoors 😃 #NorthYorkshire #comet #NEOWISE #NeowiseComet #astronomy #Astrophotography #space pic.twitter.com/36DLOU4vLW
— Steve 'Sirius' Brown – astronomer 🔭📷✨🌙 (@sjb_astro) July 17, 2020
NASA suggests that if you wnt to catch a glimpse of the comet you should do three things:
— Find a spot away from city lights with an unobstructed view of the sky
— Just after sunset, look below the Big Dipper in the northwest sky
— If you have them, bring binoculars or a small telescope
Neowise has a neat story. This is a once-in-a-lifetime viewing of this comet. It is passing by Earth after making a trek around the sun and it is headed back out toward the Kuiper Belt. The name “neowise” comes from the discoverer. According to NASA, NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission discovered it back on March 27. And it did so “using its two infrared channels, which are sensitive to the heat signatures given off by the object as the Sun started to turn up the heat.”
Here is a look at how different the orbit is compared to our own:
It may be difficult to wrap your head around this. I know it took me a few minutes! But Neowise comes in as about a 70-degree angle from our orbit around the sun. So even when it “crosses the orbit of the earth” it doesn’t actually have a chance to collide with us.
That is also why you have to look for the comet shortly after sunset. Because it is in – roughly – the same direction as the sun from our current position. So we have to wait until the earth rotates around to the point where we are pointed at only the comet and not at the comet AND the sun.
