Look up! Year’s brightest comet to zoom by

Skywatchers will get a special treat next week as the year’s brightest comet flies across the night sky.

Though the comet has the rather uninspiring name of “46P/Wirtanen,” it will be among the 10 closest comet approaches to Earth since 1950 and the 20th-closest approach of a comet dating as far back as the ninth century, according to Sky & Telescope.

Wirtanen’s closest approach to the sun will be Dec. 12, and its closest approach to Earth will be Dec. 16, EarthSky said. On that day, the comet will be “only” 7.1 million miles from Earth, rather close in cosmic terms. (The sun, for instance, is about 93 million miles away.)

The comet should be visible with the naked eye, but the best views will probably be through binoculars and small telescopes, especially away from city lights. One nuisance will be brightness from the increasingly full moon next week.

The comet and its coma, the fuzzylooking area around it, will be rather large – two to three times the diameter of the moon, Sky & Telescope reported.

“Remember, you’re not looking for a sharp star-like object but rather something which is spreading its light out over a relatively large area,” said Sky & Telescope’s Joe Rao.

At a diameter of about 3⁄4 mile, the comet is relatively small. It’ll zoom along at more than 21,000 mph.

Because the comet will remain within 10 million miles of Earth for several weeks, NASA scientists will get an extended chance to study it. NASA researcher Michael DiSanti said the comet’s flyby will allow detailed studies of its composition as more of the comet’s nucleus becomes exposed to sunlight.