A comet that was discovered in January will make its closest approach to Earth on Tuesday. If you don’t see it this time around, the only way to see it again is with the help of time travel because it won’t be back until the year 3175.
Will the weather this week allow you to see Comet Lemon?
The best viewing time will be after sunset
The Mount Lemmon Survey is an astronomical survey that employs a large telescope atop Mount Lemmon, near Tucson, Ariz. The MLS is part of the bigger Catalina Sky Survey, an attempt to identify objects that have a risk of impacting Earth. The 60-inch Cassegrain reflector telescope, equipped with a large, high-resolution camera, caught the first glimpse of the Lemmon Comet on Jan. 3 of this year.
The cosmic snowball, made up of frozen gases, dust and rock, is hurling past Earth at around 135,000 mph. Its orbital period — the time it takes to complete one orbit around the Sun — is around 1,350 years, but the gigantic star’s gravity will reduce that to 1,150 years; hence, the next chance to get a glimpse of the comet will be in 3175.
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