Comet NEOWISE is putting on a spectacular fireball show in the night sky. Never heard of it? The glowing-tail beauty has been wowing comet watchers around the world this week. Comets dont come streaking our way all that often, at least not bright ones you can see with the naked eye.

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Comets ATLAS and SWAN held bright promise earlier this year after passing close to the sun. That didnt happen to NEOWISE, which Space.com says has emphatically ended a quarter-century drought of spectacular comets. Its hailed as the best show since the Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997.

Like all A-listers, the comet has a Southern California pedigree: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Caada Flintridge operates the deep space telescope that discovered the comet on March 27. The comets official name is C/2020 F3; the telescopes acronym, NEOWISE, for Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, was added.

In its discovery images, Comet NEOWISE appeared as a glowing, fuzzy dot moving across the sky even when it was still pretty far away, Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator at the University of Arizona, said on NASAs website. As soon as we saw how close it would come to the sun, we had hopes that it would put on a good show. (Here are early photos of its discovery.)

The telescope started taking pictures December 2009, was turned off in February 2011, got rebooted and renamed in 2013, and has been producing millions of infrared images of distant comets and asteroids ever since.

Space.com describes NEOWISEs most visually stunning trait as a beautiful, gently curved tail of dust which many observers using binoculars and small telescopes have remarked has shown a noticeable yellowish tinge. Got that? Thats what youll be looking for in the sky.

NASA Science Live will air an episode about NEOWISE at noon Pacific time Wednesday on the agencys website as well as on its social media channels.

Last weekend, NEOWISE was visible in the pre-dawn hours. Now it has flipped to evening mode, making for more dramatic viewing against the dark night sky. So peel yourself away from Netflix and go outside for a look. If you miss it, this comet wont be back for about 7,000 years.

NEOWISE will be brightest about an hour and a half after sunset between now and Sunday. Look to the north-northwest and it should be about 10 degrees above the horizon. It will come closest to Earth on July 22. More good news: The sky will be good and dark because the moon is in crescent mode and wont cast light that could ruin your view.

The comet will begin to fade later in July, though still be visible with a small telescope until it disappears to the outer solar system around mid-August, according to Space.com.

Originally posted here:

Best way to see Comet NEOWISE in the night sky - Los Angeles Times