Green comet zooming our way, last visited 50,000 years ago

CAPE CANAVERAL

A comet is streaking back our way after 50,000 years.

The dirty snowball last visited during Neanderthal times, according to NASA. It will come within 26 million miles of Earth on Wednesday before speeding away again, unlikely to return for millions of years.

So do look up, contrary to the title of the killercomet movie “Don’t Look Up.”

Discovered less than a year ago, this harmless green comet already is visible in the northern night sky with binoculars and small telescopes, and possibly the naked eye in the darkest corners of the

Northern Hemisphere. It’s expected to brighten as it draws closer and rises higher over the horizon through the end of January, best seen in the predawn hours. By Feb. 10, it will be near Mars, a good landmark.

Skygazers in the Southern Hemisphere will have to wait until next month for a glimpse.

While plenty of comets have graced the sky over the past year, “this one seems probably a little bit bigger and therefore a little bit brighter and it’s coming a little bit closer to the Earth’s orbit,” said NASA’s comet and asteroid-tracking guru, Paul Chodas, director of the Center for

Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Wednesday, it will hurtle between the orbits of Earth and Mars at a relative speed of 128,500 mph. Its nucleus is thought to be about a mile across, with tails extending millions of miles. The comet isn’t expected to be as bright as Neowise in 2020, or HaleBopp and Hyakutake in the mid to late 1990s.

Don’t fret if you miss it. “In the comet business, you just wait for the next one because there are dozens of these,” Chodas said. “And the next one might be bigger, might be brighter, might be closer.”