Comet Neowise streaking across sky

Won’t return for thousands of years

Look up at the sky this month and you might receive a cosmic treat of a lifetime, scientists tell the Herald.

The comet Neowise is streaking across the sky throughout July after it survived its recent loop around the sun. The comet is now headed back toward the outer solar system, and it’s getting the attention of skywatchers across the Northern Hemisphere — who are hoping to catch a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of the cosmic snowball.

“Usually with a comet, you need a telescope to see it. But with this one, you have a short window to actually see it with unaided eyes,” said Keith Cowing, formerly of NASA.

“It’s remarkable how close it is to the earth,” added Cowing, now the editor of NASA Watch.

The comet can be seen in clear skies about an hour before sunrise, close to the horizon in the U.S. northeastern sky. Neowise is visible around 10 degrees above the northeastern horizon.

From mid-July on, it’s best viewed as an evening object, rising increasingly higher above the northwestern horizon.

Observers all over the world are hoping to see the comet before it speeds away into the depths of space. Even the astronauts aboard the International Space Station spotted it.

NASA astronaut Bob Behnken tweeted, “Night sky, just before dawn from @Space_Station. Stars, cities, spaceships, and a comet!”

The comet’s closest approach to Earth will be on July 22, at a distance of about 64 million miles.

The comet takes about 6,800 years to make one lap around its long, stretched out orbit, so it won’t visit the inner solar system again for many thousands of years.

Comets are frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system composed of dust, rock and ice.

They range in size from a few miles wide to tens of miles wide, but as they orbit closer to the sun, they heat up and spew gases and dust into a glowing head that can be larger than a planet.

This material forms a tail that stretches millions of miles.

“In its discovery images, Comet Neowise appeared as a glowing, fuzzy dot moving across the sky even when it was still pretty far away,” said Amy Mainzer, Neowise principal investigator at the University of Arizona. “As soon as we saw how close it would come to the Sun, we had hopes that it would put on a good show.”

Ap pHOTOS MAKING A SCENE: Comet Neowise soars in the horizon of the early morning sky in this view from the near the grand view lookout at the Colorado National Monument west of Grand Junction, Colo., on Thursday. The newly discovered comet is streaking past Earth, providing a celestial nighttime show after buzzing the sun and expanding its tail.