Rare Opportunity to See Comet Nishimura with Naked Eye: A Once in a Lifetime Experience

SPACE — Skywatchers will have the chance to see a comet with the naked eye in a “once in a lifetime” experience. The comet was named Nishimura.

Comet Nishimura was only discovered in August by Japanese photographer Hideo Nishimura. The comet will be closest to Earth before dawn on Tuesday, September 12, 2023.

Comets move through space at 240,000 miles per hour. Director of the EA Milne Center for Astrophysics at the University of Hull, said comets take 500 years to orbit the solar system.

Stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere will have a last chance to see Comet Nishimura on Tuesday as it passes close to Earth and glides around the Sun back into space. The comet would not return for another 435 years.

Comet Nishimura is currently visible throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The comet will be most clearly visible on Tuesday, September 12, when its closest approach to Earth will be just 78 million miles away.

Green Comet
Even though in the photo the comet looks green, if you look at it with the naked eye, the comet will look like a small line and is located at the bottom left of Venus. The comet looks like a bright spot just above the eastern horizon.

Although comets can be seen with the naked eye, the best way to see them is with a telescope or binoculars in a location with little light pollution and an unobstructed horizon.

After September 13, stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere will no longer be able to see Nishimura when it is closest to the Sun on September 17.

If Nishimura is not destroyed by its encounter with the Sun, Southern Hemisphere observers will be able to see the comet at the end of the month at night.

Comets like Nishimura have green heads. However, the emerald color does not extend to its tail.

“The green color is caused by diatomic carbon, a highly reactive molecule that is created by interactions between sunlight and organic material in the comet’s head and then immediately destroyed again by the sun’s energy before it can move far from the comet’s nucleus,” scientist Kate Howells, reported by Yahoo.

2023-09-12 02:35:00
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