ROCHESTER, NY (WROC) One of the biggest science headlines of July 2020 has been the Neowise Comet that graced skies of the Northern Hemisphere for weeks on end. Lets dive into the difference between the flying objects we see in space here. We will go in alphabetical order.

ASTEROID:

This is an image of the asteroid Eros taken by NASA in 2000.

A rock material that revolves around the sun and remains in orbit. Think of an asteroid as a rock that hangs out with other asteroids in a large belt within the solar system inbetween Mars and Jupiter. You may recognize this from popular space movies such as Star Wars that frequently features asteroid belts or asteroid fields.

COMET:

This is a photo of comet Neowise from NASA. The comet was discovered in March 2020 and was visible most of July in Rochester.

No rock involved here, just a combination of ice, dust, and gas that is moving through space, often orbiting the sun. They originate from the creation of our solar system. A comet that is millions of miles away from earth can still be seen thanks to its tail. As it nears the sun, some of the material sheds off from the main ball of gas, dust and ice to make the tail that can extend sometimes for millions of miles.

METEOR/METEOROID/METEORITE:

A meteoroid heading toward earth turns into a meteor and will often burn up in the atmosphere, creating a shooting star.

An asteroid can break off into a meteoroid (picture above) that is just floating in space. This can happen if two asteroids run into each other. A meteoroid can also come from a comet. When a meteoroid enters earths atmosphere, it turns into a meteor. These meteor showers are common and can also be referred to shooting stars. If it gets all the way to the surface of the earth, it is a meteorite. Below is a list of common meteor showers that occur throughout the year from NASA.

Quadrantids December/JanuaryLyrids AprilPerseids AugustOrionids OctoberLeonids NovemberGeminids December

USEFUL MNEMONICS:

Originally posted here:

Space objects defined: The differences between comets, meteors, and asteroids - RochesterFirst

Design and illustrations by Micah Fluellen

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California mostly closed down again this week. The coronavirus has the state on the ropes, prompting the governor to roll back the opening of restaurants, gyms and salons for hard-hit areas. So where does that leave us? Outdoors, of course. Here are three things to do, starting with a spectacular fireball lighting up the sky right now.

1. Look for this comet in the night sky. Comets dont come streaking our way all that often, at least not bright ones you can see with the naked eye. Many get roasted when they pass close to the sun. That didnt happen to the Comet NEOWISE. Instead, the glowing beauty with a tail has been wowing watchers since early July. Space.com gives it props for emphatically ending a quarter-century drought of spectacular comets.

Last weekend, the comet was visible in the predawn hours. Now it has flipped into evening mode. So peel yourself away from binge-watching on Netflix and look up. If you miss it, this comet wont be back for about 7,000 years. Heres what you need to know to see it:

This photo illustration shows where you can find Comet NEOWISE in the night sky.

(Isaac Cabrera)

By the way, the comet is officially named C/2020 F3 and nicknamed NEOWISE after the acronym for the NASA space telescope (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) that discovered it on March 27.

Read the full story here.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

2. See a California condor in the wild. Mike Maxcy had a twinge of pride when he examined photos of the handful of California condors that recently swooped into Sequoia National Park for the first time in a half-century. Two of the birds had been hatched and raised at the L.A. Zoo. You get that full-circle feeling, said the zoos curator of birds, who IDd the condors by their wing tags.

Its been a wild ride for Maxcy and others who worked on the massive task of heading off extinction of North Americas largest bird for decades. He joined the zoo in 1987 when the last of less than 30 birds left in the wild were captured and brought in for an ambitious captive breeding program. The controversial idea was to raise chicks, train them to flourish in the wild and let them go. Miraculously, it worked.

Last year, the 1,000th chick was born in the wild at Zion National Park. But there were many bumps along the way. Early released birds were electrocuted on power lines; others died after eating carrion laced with lead from bullets (last year California banned hunters from using lead bullets) or drinking radiator fluid.

Now roughly 300 birds soar in Southern California, the Big Sur area, Arizona, southern Utah and Baja, Mexico. An additional 230 thrive in zoo breeding programs. One day, perhaps a condor will again sail over Yosemites Half Dome, as it does in a scene depicted on the flip side of California quarters.

Until then, Maxcy and the zoo continue to release condor chicks and run captive breeding programs to bring back other endangered species, such as the mountain yellow-legged frog native to the San Gabriel Mountains that surround Los Angeles. And the faraway Bali myna, which has been diminished by the pet trade in their native Indonesia. Just 100 exist in the wild, but about 1,000 flourish in zoos around the country. We are Noahs ark, Maxcy said. Its up to us to keep species thriving.

Here are places to look for California condors in the wild.

Let plants inspire your yoga poses at the Sherman Library & Gardens in Corona del Mar.

(Sherman Library & Gardens)

3. Outdoor yoga in the garden. Need to be rescued from your Zoom yoga rut? The Sherman Library & Gardens in Corona del Mar may help. The Central Garden provides the setting for outdoor yoga sessions on Wednesday evenings this summer that include breath work, Hatha yoga and a meditation practice. Class size is limited to allow plenty of room for social distancing. Participants should bring their own yoga mat, a small towel and water. And depending on which session you pick, you can get a glass of wine afterward. Upcoming classes are set for July 22 and July 29, and cost $25 ($20 for members). You must register in advance and wear a mask to class. Go to thesherman.org or call (949) 673-2261.

(Wong Maye-E / Associated Press)

Airports around the world have been pretty much stilled by the coronavirus outbreak. But some people in Singapore are booking rooms at the sprawling Changi Airport just to visit. Huh? With its butterfly and orchid gardens, custom-made airport fragrance and glass-domed mall housing the worlds tallest indoor waterfall, the experience is considered the gold standard of international airports a stark example of everything its austere American counterparts are not, L.A. Times staff writer David Pierson reports. And yes, your chances are good of having a butterfly land on you inside the garden where 1,000 of them flutter around freely. The airports indoor tropical retreats havent saved it from the harsh economic reality of a 99% drop-off in passengers since April. Still, theres something quirky and mildly appealing about kicking back at a 130-foot waterfall inside an airport.

Read the full story here.

(Micah Fluellen / Los Angeles Times)

Over the years, many people have asked me how to make the leap from day hikes to overnight backpacking trips. A million things go through my mind as I try to formulate an easy answer. Fortunately, trail guide Andrew Skurka has a simpler response. Writing on Outside.com, Skurka shares seven tips for planning a successful backpacking trip, starting with asking yourself a basic question: Why hiking instead of car camping? Then he gets you thinking about where you want to go, who you want to go with, which gear youll need on the trail, what food to bring, etc. He weaves in safety touches good for backpackers at all levels. Its a nice little read to help anyone get started and help me whittle down my million thoughts.

Shortly before the pandemic hit the U.S., I took a long train ride from L.A. to Seattle on the Coast Starlight. After leaving downtown, the train swept out to the coast toward Santa Barbara, where I imagined the oceans waves were in sync with the rocking train. About 20 hours later, I peered out the window at a thick forest of snowy trees as the train chugged into the Cascade Range, peak after peak whizzing by. Amtrak describes the route as 1,377 miles of sheer magnificence. I agree; it felt like a grand outdoors sampler. Private roomettes (good for social distancing) for two passengers on the Coast Starlight are on sale until Friday. One way tickets cost $432, or $216 each, which includes meals. Here are the details about how to book Amtraks fare sale.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park was among the most visited national parks in 2019.

(National Park Service)

National parks racked up 327.5 million visitors in 2019, a 2.9% increase over the previous year. Whered we all go? Mostly to the 10 most visited parks in the U.S.

Among other National Park System sites, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the Bay Area remained the most visited ahead of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which runs through North Carolina and Virginia.

Among the least visited (where you may escape big crowds) are Pinnacles National Park in Central California (177,224 visitors) and Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada (131,802 visitors).

What do you think? Keep the comments coming. Share anything thats on your mind. The Wild is written for you and delivered to your inbox for free. Drop us a line at TheWild@latimes.com.

Click here to view the web version of this newsletter and share with others. Im Mary Forgione and I write The Wild. Ive been exploring trails and open spaces in Southern California for four decades.

The rest is here:

How to best see the Comet NEOWISE right now - Los Angeles Times

ST. LOUIS You dont have to be an early bird to catch a view of a once-in-a-lifetime comet. Stargazers in the northern hemisphere can now see the comet known as NEOWISE just after sunset.

Its really almost 20 years now since weve had a good, visible comet for us to look forward to. But that drought has really come to an end this year. NEOWISE is putting on a great show, said Will Snyder, the manager of the James. S. McDonnell Planetarium at the St. Louis Science Center.

Snyder is referring to Comet Hale-Boppin 1997. Why so few? Most comets dont survive their closest approach to the sun.

When were looking at a comet, you know, you think of it as that cosmic, dirty ice ball in the solar system. And, sometimes, it gets too close to the sun. It doesnt survive. It breaks up, Snyder said.

But NEOWISE survived and is now passing near Earth. Look northwest, right under the Big Dipper, about 45 minutes after sunset. While not needed, binoculars or a telescopewill offer a better view. This is the best time of the month to see the comet because we are approaching the new moon, meaning there is very little moonlight.

You do want to, obviously, give yourself the darkest sky possible, Snyder said. And when we dont have something like the moon shining back at us that definitely helps. But anytime you can get away from city lights or, even if you cant travel, just turning off lights that you might have around your property.

Comet NEOWISE isnt the only celestial body you can see just after sunset. Swing yourself to the east and youll see the planets Jupiter and Saturn.

Theyre rising pretty much right after sunset right now in the eastern sky. So, almost 180 degrees from where you are looking for the comet. So, no matter where you look, you may see something cool.

Add to that, St. Louis is back in the path of the International Space Station and there will be several chances to see it pass by over the next several days.

And dont worry early risers; you can still catch a great showing by the planet Venus in the eastern sky before sunrise.

NEOWISE will make its closest approach to earth on July 22; after that, it will gradually fade. It wont be back for 6,800 years. Read more information from NASA here.

Track the International Space Station: spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings

Excerpt from:

Now visible in the evening, dark skies enhance chance to see Comet NEOWISE - KTVI Fox 2 St. Louis

The United Arab Emirates Hope spacecraft has begun its journey to Mars. Well join a virtual launch party attended by mission leaders, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, National Air and Space Museum director Ellen Stofan and others. Comet NEOWISE is still putting on a show! Learn more about it from NEOWISE principal investigator Amy Mainzer, NASA planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson and JPL scientist Emily Kramer. Our own Casey Dreier provides an overview of three far-sighted white papers submitted as part of the new planetary science decadal survey.

Karl Schwarzschild solved the Einstein field equations for the geometry of empty space-time around a non-rotating, uncharged, axially-symmetric black hole with a quasi-spherical event horizon. Who first solved those equations with all those conditions except for a rotating black hole? (Phew.)

The winner will be revealed next week.

The Bond albedo is named after astronomer George Bond, who did not have a license to kill.

Mat Kaplan: This is Planetary Radio.

Speaker 2: [Foreign language 01:10:02]

Mat Kaplan: With that lift off from Japan, a new Hope began its journey to Mars. Welcome. I'm Mat Kaplan of the Planetary Society with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. What a week it was for space fans. We'll celebrate the successful launch of the United Arab Emirates Mission to the red planet with members of the Hope Team, NASA administrator, Bridenstine, George Whitesides of Virgin Galactic, Ellen Stofan of the National Air and Space Museum and others.

Mat Kaplan: Then we'll hear from leaders of the mission that discovered Comet NEOWISE, including NEOWISE principal investigator, Amy Mainzer, and NASA planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson. Casey Dreier also had a big week. The Planetary Society's senior space policy advisor submitted three inspiring papers to the National Academy's, Planetary Science Decadal Survey. Casey will be here to tell us about them. We've got Bruce Bettes waiting for us with even more about how to see that comet and the other wonders lingering above us.

Mat Kaplan: Here are just two headlines from the July 17 edition of the downlink, brought to you each week by the Planetary Society. Remember that dark green substance on the moon's far side that was inaccurately described as gel-like? It turns out it's probably just glassy rock. But this find by China's U22 Rover is still intriguing. Apollo astronauts found the same sort of deposit on the near side. It might've been formed in the heat of a volcanic eruption or a meteor impact. By the way, by the time you hear this, it's possible that China's ambitious Mars Mission, Tianwen-1, may be on its way to Fourth Rock.

Mat Kaplan: Speaking of the moon and Mars, NASA has just relaxed planetary protection requirements for both bodies. The agency feared the old standards might've prevented eventual human exploration of the red planet. You can read more at planetary.org/downlink, where you'll also enjoy a beautiful image of Jupiter's moon, Europa, captured years ago by Voyager 2. It was Sunday afternoon, July 19th here on the California coast. I excused myself from my wife's socially distant birthday celebration so that I could join a different sort of party.

Mat Kaplan: The online event began about an hour before that launch of an H2 rocket from the coast of Japan. His Excellency, Yousef Al Otaiba, United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States, opened the webcast.

His Excellency, Yousef Al Otaiba: Good afternoon from Washington. For those of you in the U.S., thank you for joining us on a Sunday afternoon, and thanks to all our friends watching from the UAE and around the world at this very late hour. Today, if all goes well, the UAE become the first Arab country to launch and interplanetary spacecraft. This day has been years in the making. Many of you are likely familiar with President John F. Kennedy's Moon Shot Speech. That speech inspired the American people to invest in space and space exploration, and ultimately land the first humans on the moon.

His Excellency, Yousef Al Otaiba: In 2014, we announced our own Moon Shot Initiative. Our leadership challenged Emirati scientists and engineers to build a space probe and launch it into orbit around Mars in time for our 50th anniversary. It makes me so proud to see friends and colleagues gathered here today, six years later, to watch that dream become reality.

Mat Kaplan: Also awaiting the launch of Hope was NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstein. Here's some of what he had to say.

Jim Bridenstine: Long before I was the NASA administrator even when I was in the House of Representatives, and you guys came to me and you said, Hey, look, we have this big ambition. We just started a new space agency as the United Arab Emirates and we're in fact going to go to Mars. And I remember thinking, Wow, that's a stretch. And you gave me the timeline and I remember thinking that this is going to be a very, very difficult challenge. I don't know that at the time I fully believed that we would be in this moment right now.

Jim Bridenstine: I just want to say, to start, congratulations. It has been, I know, not always easy. There's always challenges, this is space white. But what an amazing job the United Arab Emirates has done putting together this mission and getting to this point. We've already seen the United Arab Emirates launch its own domestically produced satellite that is providing remote sensing and imagery on the earth to understand our changing environment, KhalifaSat, which of course has been a great contributor to our understanding of our own planet.

Jim Bridenstine: You've already had your first astronaut on the international space station. You've got plans for more astronauts on the international space station. The United States of America is very, very excited about having another partner in human space flight. And, of course, our big project is to go to the moon. The United Arab Emirates of course has its own lunar mission that it's launching in 2022, which is going to be amazing. I think this is a great moment, not just for the United Arab Emirates but for the United States of America and, in fact, for all of the international partners that are involved in exploring space and sharing information.

Jim Bridenstine: All of us can do more when we work together. The United Arab Emirates is a shining example of what can be done when we do in fact work together, so we're grateful for the partnership. We look forward to the launch. Space is one of those areas that unites people. In the House of Representatives and then the Senate and the American politics, no surprise here, there are some times divisions. But when it comes to space exploration, it unites people. Republicans and Democrats alike come together and say, We need to explore space. We need to get the science and the data. They say, We need to make discoveries and we need to explore.

Jim Bridenstine: And it doesn't just bring together parties within the United States, it brings together nations of the world in a very unique way. I really believe space is an amazing tool of diplomacy. The relationship between Russia and the United States, it's not a secret that it is very strained here terrestrially. But here in November, just a few months, we're going to celebrate 20 years of living and working together in space on the international space station. That's an amazing accomplishment.

Jim Bridenstine: That goes back to 1975. 1975, the Apollo-Soyuz project, where we had Russians and Americans working together in space for the first time, then the Shuttle-Mir project, and now the International Space Station project. Look, when it comes to exploration and discovery, it transcends boundaries and it enables people to work together in ways that oftentimes is not easy. It keeps open a channel of communication, so I really do believe it is an amazing tool of diplomacy for all nations.

Mat Kaplan: The administrator of Bridenstein was followed by Mike Gold, acting associate administrator for International and Interagency Relations at NASA.

Mike Gold: Let me apologize in advance, this is where I offend all of the engineers. While the technical challenges that we face are certainly important, I believe that the policy, the legal frameworks, are of equal importance to the technology. While I'm extremely excited about the Hope launch, and again congratulations on everything that you and the team have done, one of the launches that I was most excited about was the launch of the United Arab Emirates into the United Nations committee on the peaceful uses of outer space.

Mike Gold: You sit next to us due to alphabetical order. The UAE and the United States are literally next to each other, which is only appropriate given that we are so close together on policy. New space agencies like yours, the emerging space agencies, it's so important that we come together with the traditional space agencies to create a safe, peaceful, and prosperous world for all of us. By tackling those policy issues, that's how we do so. UAE has been an incredible partner, not only to us but the entire world.

Mike Gold: It's what we're trying to accomplish with the Artemis Accords, looking at transparency, safety, interoperability, the public release of scientific data. It's all so important, and UAE has been a tremendous partner already there. We look forward to continuing that policy leadership together into the future. Your daughter, my son and children from all throughout the world will one day be standing on Mars together to create that peaceful and prosperous future for all of us.

Mat Kaplan: Mike Gold of NASA. Remember, this was all before the successful launch so you can understand the apprehension in the voice of Sarah Al Amiri. Sarah chairs the United Arab Emirates council of scientists and is minister of state for advanced sciences. But she's also a science lead for what is formerly known as the EMM, the Emirates Mars Mission. On August 1st, she will become president of the UAE Space Agency.

Sarah bint Yousif Al Amiri: A collection of mixed feelings from being terrified, to being excited, to apprehensive, to I just can't explain the multitude of emotions at the moment, especially reflecting on the large chunk that this has taken from our lives. Everyone that has been on the mission, including our partners, this has been our every living breathing moment. It has been part of our household, part of our families, part of our workplaces constantly. You get to a point in the mission where there's no such thing as day and night and work days and work weeks and so on.

Sarah bint Yousif Al Amiri: I think it's interesting in retrospect to see if this is going to create a void after launch, especially when the spacecraft is on here and its honest journey. Let's see what the journey has in store for us.

Mat Kaplan: The webinar was ably moderated by Talal Al Kaissi of the UAE Space Agency. I first met Talal when he was assigned to the UAE embassy in Washington. We were closing in on the launch when Talal introduced two more of the EMM Hope Mission team members.

Talal Al Kaissi: I'd like to now turn to two young engineers who actually worked on the project and have spent quite some time in Colorado with our knowledge partners, in the University of Colorado in Boulder. Both Heyam Al Blooshi, who is actually in Japan right now as you can see she's sideways on the screen and she's wearing the Emirates Mars Miss... There you go. Hoor Al Mazmi who's here with us in Abu Dhabi. Can you tell us a little bit about your experiences on the project? Maybe starting with you Heyam.

Heyam Al Blooshi: Hey, greetings everyone. My name is Heyam Al Blooshi I am an assembling technician and testing engineer at the UAE Space Agency, and I had the pleasure to work on the Emirates Mars probe and it was my first ever space mission. I feel that could touch on the point that space is a collaborative work, the collaboration between the UAE Space Agency the United Arab Emirates is what I mean, and the United States and also Japan, really enabled this mission to happen.

Heyam Al Blooshi: Knowledge transfer that I got from this mission is just amazing, building blocks for economic diversification, which is the main objective here. Thank you so much. I'm very excited for the launch.

Hoor Al Mazmi: My name is Hoor Al Mazmi. I'm a space science engineer at the UAE Space Agency and I'm part of the Emirates first mission science team. I worked on the science closure of the mission part of the science closure. I also got to work in Colorado. I got to do my master's while working, so I got to experience American culture again after my undergrad experience. That was nice and it was a great way for me to connect with scientists from all over the world through this experience. I wouldn't have been able to do this without the Emirates Mars Mission.

Talal Al Kaissi: I'd like to now turn into a very good friend of the UAE, Mr. George Whitesides, who was the CEO of Virgin Galactic until a few days ago when he now has the coolest name or coolest title in the space industry, the Chief Space Officer of Virgin Galactic to share his experience in dealing with the UAE through the partnership Virgin Galactic and [inaudible 00:12:44] investment company have. George.

George Whitesides: Hey Talal, and thank you for having us with you and everyone in the UAE space effort. It's such a great honor to be with you all and such an exciting moment. Yeah, so our relationship with UAE has been going on for now over a decade when we started a partnership around Virgin Galactic and its aspirations. It's just been such an incredible pleasure and, honestly, a joy to watch the growth of the UAE space sector as you pursue a very rational and logical series of steps to increase capacity within the country and to do real things as the administrator.

George Whitesides: Mike Gold said you really do a very well-planned agenda of real space activity. Our relationship on the Virgin Galactic side relates to potential growth of our business someday to the UAE. There has been a space port, or a potential space port, location identified in the UAE which has all the right parameters for a potential operation as well as now the new space legal framework that the UAE has created which enables those activities. And so that's what I mean about putting the blocks in place to really pursue a quite diverse range of activities from science as today to human space flight and educational capacity building.

George Whitesides: It's just been a joy to watch the growth, and to be a small part of that story has been terrific and we're grateful to you Talal for the role you play as a diplomat within the space community to connect us all to the different things that UAE is working on.

Mat Kaplan: I'll close our coverage of the beginning of the EMM Hope Mission with a historical perspective from an old friend of Planetary Radio. Ellen Stofan leads the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The planetary scientist is also a former chief scientist for NASA.

Ellen Stofan: For me, the ambassador touched on it in the beginning, this whole program, and I've known Talal for now quite a number of years, and really watched this probe come to life. It reminds me of another country 50 some years ago now that in eight and a half years made it from basically no space agency at all to sending people to the moon. That spirit of Apollo is what I have really watched happening in the UAE. They will get the same results that we got from Apollo, inspiring a generation to go out and do the impossible.

Ellen Stofan: When you consider the people, like Jeff Bezos for example, who were inspired by Apollo that's what's going to be happening in the UAE. Every school child is going to be watching Hope and saying, I want to be that first person to step on Mars.

Mat Kaplan: As you heard, if all goes well, Hope will be inserted into its orbit above Mars in February of 2021. The same month we'll see the arrival of China's Tianwen-1 and the Perseverance Rover from NASA. What? You still haven't seen Comet NEOWISE? Apologies to our many Southern hemisphere listeners who don't have this surprising visitor in the sky. As you'll hear, when we talk with Bruce, I was finally able to see the comet a few days ago. It's called NEO wise because it was discovered by that mission. That mission is led by principal investigator Amy Mainzer.

Mat Kaplan: Amy has moved from the jet propulsion lab to the University of Arizona, where she is a professor in the school's lunar and planetary laboratory. Here are excerpts from her participation in a NASA teleconference just days ago.

Amy Mainzer: This object was spotted in late March. On March 27th, we saw a series of images of it, and it was immediately obvious that it was pretty likely that this would be a comet based on the extended emission, sort of fuzz, that we saw surrounding the point like nucleus of the comet as it moved across the sky against the background stars. But when we first discover these objects, we know so very little about them. We just see that there's something moving.

Amy Mainzer: In this case, we were able to call some friends who were able to contribute follow-up observations of the comment and determined that it orbit would actually take it fairly close to the sun. Which immediately becomes pretty exciting for us because when something that's been frozen in deep space for a really long time gets close to the sun a lot of exciting things can happen.

Mat Kaplan: Amy Mainzer was joined in the telecom by her NEOWISE mission colleague, Emily Kramer. Emily is a co-investigator based at NASA JPL.

Emily Kramer: The comet is about three miles or five kilometers in diameter, which is reasonably large but roughly average-sized comet. We're getting these spectacular images showing the comet's broad dust tail and ion trail in some cases as well. You should be able to see those comets for another few weeks or so, depending on how bright it stays. Comets are notoriously difficult to predict what's going to happen to them. We're all quite excited to see how this comet progresses.

Emily Kramer: Because Comet NEOWISE is so bright, we're able to see it a lot more clearly than we do for many other comets. We're able to see it with a lot of different telescopes in different areas, and we're able to use different kinds of observations. We're able to spectroscopy as well as what we call photometry, which is measuring how bright an object is. We're also able to look at what we call it's morphology, which means the shape. Comet tails tend to have a different shape as they move around away from the sun, so by studying this nice bright tail we'll be able to get a better idea of what's going on in the comments tail and understand the physics of comets.

Amy Mainzer: I would add onto that too. That one of the reasons we study comets like this one, and why this one is so appreciated because it is so bright, is that we really would like to know a lot more about their composition as well as their internal structure and how crumbly they are. We care about this because in the unlikely, extremely unlikely, event that we would find a comet that is headed our way we would like to know something about its structure and composition so we have a better idea of how to push it out of the way.

Amy Mainzer: One of the things we're interested in learning is how crumbly or how strong the comet is on the inside. Is it fragmented on the inside? Does it break apart more easily when it gets heated up? One of the things we'll be studying as we look at the dust signature from the object is the sizes of the particles that are coming off of its surface and can we use that to understand the total mass of the object as well as how fast it's moving that mass by crumbling apart as it's being heated.

Mat Kaplan: A few of us got to ask questions during the Comet NEOWISE telecom. I asked Emily Kramer if the up close and personal observations of Comet 67P by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft have affected what we look for from a distance as other comets pass by.

Emily Kramer: It totally has reshaped our understanding of comments when we look at them from a distance. One of the really fascinating things that we discovered from the Rosetta Mission is that many comets have what we be call micro outburst, where they just let off a little bit of extra puffs of activity every now and then. When we're observing from the ground, we might miss these if we're not looking closely for them as most of the time the comets they were fairly [inaudible 00:20:08]. They don't do anything particularly interesting. They get brighter, or they get dimmer.

Emily Kramer: Sometimes they let off a bit of a puff of extra terabit of extra activity. But Rosetta has showed us that these smaller puffs happens pretty frequently, and so we're now able to see that. We're tracking these objects more closely and we're seeing a wider variety of activities than we had seen before.

Mat Kaplan: Also in the telecom was another old friend of our show. Lindley Johnson has led NASA's planetary defense office for years, and has the great title of Planetary Defense Officer. I asked Lindley about the status of plan for a dedicated space-based infrared telescope that will search for and characterize near-earth objects, those asteroids and comets that might threaten our planet.

Lindley Johnson: Thanks for the question, Mat. We do have funding now in our planetary defense program budget for a startup of a new space-based infrared telescope, a mission that we were calling the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission. We have funding this year that Congress designated for a startup work on the instrument development of about 35 million. There is a funding in fiscal year 21 as well, proposed for 21. Of course, the budget for 21 is still with Congress for appropriations, so we are hoping that their negotiations turn out well and we'll continue to have the funding available.

Mat Kaplan: I closed out my questions for all three of the telecom guests by asking if they had seen Comet NEOWISE with their own eyes.

Amy Mainzer: Yes. It's actually been a really big treat. I actually just went and looked at it a couple of nights ago and it was very low on the horizon, but I spotted it without binoculars. I was able to see it. It's really cool. I have to admit it's really, really fun to see something that we see in as space telescope and it looks like fuzzy dots when we first see it, of course. But there's really nothing quite like being able to see it with your own eyes and know that there really is something there and you know it's very tangible. That's pretty exciting. Plus, it's just beautiful. It's really fun to look at something like that.

Emily Kramer: I've gotten to go see it a couple times in the morning when it was just [inaudible 00:22:31] week. The first one was just from right near Pasadena. We had a fantastic view of it rising up over the mountains. It gave me chills to see that, knowing that our space telescope discovered that and that there's this object in space that we helped to find. That was really very exciting.

Lindley Johnson: I'm waiting for the cloudy skies down here in Florida to clear. In the evening, the last couple of evenings, we've had a big cloud bake of thunder storms in that part of the sky. I have my fingers crossed that here in the next week we'll have clear skies and I'll be able to see it off my front deck here in Florida.

Mat Kaplan: NASA's Lindley Johnson joined by NEOWISE principal investigator, Amy Mainzer, and NEOWISE co-investigator Emily Kramer for a conversation about Comet NEOWISE. A brief break and then I'll return with Casey Dreier.

Bill Nye: Where did we come from? Are we alone in the cosmos? These are the questions at the core of our existence. The secrets of the universe are out there waiting to be discovered. But to find them we have to go into space. We have to explore. This endeavor unites us. Space exploration truly brings out the best in us, encouraging people from all walks of life to work together to achieve a common goal, to know the cosmos and our place within it. This is why the Planetary Society exists.

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Mat Kaplan: Did you hear Alan Stern's latest Planetary Radio appearance a couple of weeks ago? Then you may remember Alan's mentioned of a paper he was working on. The deadline for submitting that paper was Wednesday, July 15th. My colleague Casey Dreier was working toward the same drop dead. As you know, Casey is our senior space policy advisor and chief advocate at the Planetary Society. He also joins me to co-host our monthly space policy edition episodes. I was pretty sure when I read them that you'd also find these papers fascinating, so I invited Casey to join us for an overview.

Mat Kaplan: Casey, welcome back to the show. This is great timing for us to talk about this because we're all about what a huge week last week was. It was a big week for you too counting three papers that needed to be submitted. First of all, remind us of what the decadal survey process is all about and why you were a part of it.

Casey Dreier: The decadal survey is kind of a short hand for this, once every 10 years, right? Decadal, 10 years process that NASA requests from the National Academy Of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, this independent body in the United States whose job it is to give scientific advice to government. The decadal survey's process is done for every one of NASA's four major science divisions, planetary science, astrophysics, planetary science, and heliophysics. The planetary science decadal survey then, that just formally began in March, has the goal of delivering a final paper by the end of 2021 or early 2022, so it's a long process.

Casey Dreier: The one that we're in now was a very important report that was provided back in 2011, and it basically sets the priority of the entire field. It's meant to be a consensus document. You know it's never perfect but the idea is that the scientific community says in the next 10 years these are the biggest science questions that we could pursue in planetary science and then these are the missions that can help us answer those questions. It helps NASA, it helps the Congress, and helps it advocacy organizations like the Planetary Society and others to all get on the same page.

Casey Dreier: Someone really nicely referred to this to as the sword and shield of planetary science, sort of in the sense that we can use it to rally behind and advance and get new missions. The Europa clipper mission was a good example of this in the last decadal survey. And shield in that we can rally in defense in case budget cuts happen to say these are the most important priorities, these have to happen in the next decade to advance the science. It's a very impactful and very widely respected process and report.

Casey Dreier: It's technically nonbinding, so NASA doesn't have to follow the recommendations. But again, the heft and the weight and the value that everyone places upon it, that is what gives it the inherent respectability and influence that it has.

Mat Kaplan: My understanding is that a lot of submissions, as part of the decadal survey process, promote specific planetary science missions. In fact, we recently heard about one of these, an argument for a Pluto orbiter that came from Alan Stern and a team he put together just a couple of weeks ago. These three papers that we're going to talk about, you really are doing something very different with these it seems.

Casey Dreier: Yeah. As part of the decadal process, one aspect of it is to take community input, and they do this in the form of these formal paper submissions. And so we just had a deadline in July for science-focused papers to promote various individuals priority sciences and say, Make this argument, why is this science really important for the next 10 years? They also have papers for specific missions to achieve those science goals and then also broader state of the field input, just kind of general ideas.

Casey Dreier: The idea is that the committee that writes this final report for the next decadal survey reads through all of these and tries to represent or get a good sampling of what the community is feeling about these things. For the Planetary Society, we're a pro science organization but we're not a scientific organization. Right? I think Bruce is the only person among us who has a PhD in science. Emily has her master's in planetary science. But the organization itself wants to support the scientific community.

Casey Dreier: Our position that we submitted to the decadal survey, we submitted two official papers on behalf of the society signed by the board of directors. It stepped back a little bit from individual missions and tried to make a case about large themes, things that can help set that organizing principle for how do you prioritize from all of these incredible things we can do exploring the solar system? What ways can you try to prioritize these options to maximally return on excitement, potentially revolutionary science, to the basic survival of the human species?

Casey Dreier: That's what the society wanted to contribute with some of the submitting these ideas and thoughts and language to help these committees put together and ultimately, hopefully, influence the final outcome of the report to prioritize these aspects of space exploration that the society and its members really value.

Mat Kaplan: Well, let's tackle the first of these papers and themes that you took on, The Search for Life as a Guidepost to Scientific Revolution, which you're lead author of along with our CEO Bill Nye. And significantly this is co-signed, as is the next paper, by the society's entire board of directors. You point way back to the beginnings of the scientific revolution and say that it largely began with the application of physics beyond earth and that that's been followed by the application of chemistry and geology. Am I right in saying that basically you're saying it's now time for biology to take this leap?

Casey Dreier: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you look at the trend, which past results don't guarantee future returns, but if you look at the trend all of science is this realization that Carl Sagan called them the great demotions of humanity, right? Where we used to think we were the big shot, the whole universe revolved around us. Then we realized, Nope, no, we're actually just revolving around the sun. And, oh, well, the sun's not revolving around the center of the Milky Way and, oh, there's no center to the universe and so forth.

Casey Dreier: The idea of this kind of extending this trend, and this is a formulation I always enjoyed from Kevin Hand who you've had on the show, is formulation that we've learned in the course of the scientific history that what we defined on earth, what we discovered around us was actually laws that were universal, so physics and motions of things in the sky, the discovery of chemistry. Right? The fact that there are chemical molecules is floating around in space that through spectroscopy we can discover and see how those form and what they're doing out there.

Casey Dreier: Then further the discovery of geology, right? The motions of things on terrestrial planets or the alterations that happen to them when exposed to the surface was confirmed by sending planetary probes throughout the mid 20th century. And so if you take that trend line, well, everything else seems to apply out there in addition to here on earth and that big remaining question, the one science that we only have this data point of one for, is biology. Everything we've learned about the universe suggests that there's nothing special in terms of why biology exists on the earth and so there's a good chance that it's somewhere else out there.

Casey Dreier: That is functionally what we're arguing in this paper amounts to a scientific revolution waiting to happen. Everything we understand about biology, we're limited to the types of chemistry and structures and processes and metabolisms that exist from this one common descendant from an ancient, ancient ancestor here on earth. Now, is that a common form of these convergent factors in terms of evolution? Or if we discover living life somewhere else in the solar system, close enough in the sense that we could analyze it and understand it, would that give us fundamental insights into new ways to approach biology and we gain this out?

Casey Dreier: The maximal beneficial potential for this would be, oh, we understand biology and this opens up this whole new way of making medicines and applied biology. It can really fundamentally reduce human suffering, maybe. Maybe there's nothing out there. Or maybe there's something out there but it's not very interesting ultimately. Either way the total outcome, the total potential value, is so huge weighted towards that maximum potential that even the low likelihood of that incredible benefit should compel us to pursue that incredible benefit if it's there.

Casey Dreier: We should give ourselves the chance to discover this, all things being equal. That's the core of this paper. It's that the search for life, and unlike a lot of other areas of science in which scientific revolution happens unexpectedly through some fundamental breakthrough or new theory, the search for life is a guidepost. It tells us how to do it. Nothing fundamentally new has to happen for us to seriously look for life in our solar system and in solar systems beyond. Actually that's where the guideposts that's saying, Here, go this way.

Casey Dreier: If it's there, there could be something fundamentally revolutionary to our understanding of the cosmos and here's how to do it. Very few opportunities in science give us that.

Mat Kaplan: I like this line of sort of the central line that you have here, the search for life should be the unifying goal in the coming to KETO survey. You point to previous so-called discontinuities in scientific development, these big jumps. I mean, if you're looking at steady progress of science, suddenly there is this discontinuity, and you point toward the potential for this to happen in exobiology. It seems to be what you're talking about here. Do I have this right?

Casey Dreier: Yeah, that's absolutely true. I mean, because again we have this data point of one, right? The N equals 1 problem in terms of how we formulate our understanding of the laws of biology. We don't have a huge range to use that. What are we missing beyond the fact that maybe there's this weird quirks of biology that happened that are conditional to earth? If we double that, that N equals 2, you suddenly have a huge amount of new information and that's that discontinuity. We made this obviously very simplified graph, but just a way to think about it, where you have this kind of process of day in and day out science on these various fields.

Casey Dreier: We've been fortunate in humanity in the last few 100 years to have relatively steady growth of knowledge about the world around us, the natural world, through the application of science. Occasionally, yeah, when you find something like if you found life that wouldn't be this gradual accumulation of new knowledge. It would be a jump and that's where the discontinuity happens. It's like a step function in our scientific understanding of biology in the cosmos. That's really only possible through the pursuit of planetary science.

Casey Dreier: Because in order to fully get the value from that, to fully get the amount of knowledge from that, you have to be able to effectively eventually bring it back to earth or near-earth to study. You can do in-situ stuff, but ultimately you have to have very good sample return and very detailed studies of it, which is impossible with exoplanets and things that are just beyond earth because we just can't get to them. And so we have these habitable environments that we know of, right? They're just begging us to explore them with Europa and Enceladus and the ancient aspects of Mars and sub-surface of Mars. We might as well look.

Casey Dreier: That's where we say, for the decadal committee, not only we believe we're compelled to pursue this based on that potential however unlikely outcome of just massive societal benefit or just massive increases in knowledge, but it's a very useful way to organize the exploratory structure. Because the search for life is just so cross-cutting. There are so many different aspects of science involved in it. There's just a very useful way to organize the whole program with this big pursuit that we also know resonates with people, people get it, it's very clearly communicated. It's ambitious.

Casey Dreier: They talk about this idea of life as a planetary phenomenon. You can't dissociate the context of biology from the natural context in which it came from. And so to understand life as a planetary phenomenon, you have to understand planet. It allows you to prioritize and figure out what aspects of planetary science, geology, atmospheric science, formation, motion. All the aspects of planetary science still fit in this. But it's just a nice way to think of the program from a holistic perspective as opposed to pursuing bits and pieces of different questions here and there.

Mat Kaplan: Ambitious. Yes, it sure is an ambitious goal. But are we talking exclusively about big, expensive flagship missions? Cassini's and Curiosities and Perseverance?

Casey Dreier: Well, we hope not to be. The other aspect of this paper is we know that for the most part every life-focused mission that we've done in planetary science has been a flagship mission. That's unsustainable. You can't really pursue that because flagship missions really, if we're lucky, we get two in a decadal period. Right? They're just expensive multibillion dollar missions. We have to find ways to increase detection, the number of opportunities I should say, for potential detection. That means doing modest, midsize, even discovery style, bio-signature detection.

Casey Dreier: The point that we make is if you can do more small missions, you don't have to have this full suite of exquisitely sensitive life detecting instrumentation. You can focus on one or two bio-signatures. If you show a promising bio-signature, then you get that big mission that focuses on the life question. But we have to have a way to increase the number of opportunities to detect life in our solar system and, again, in solar systems beyond. You do that just by lowering the cost. I mean, ideally you do that by increasing the budget, which we've been doing over the last few years, but they have to go hand in hand.

Mat Kaplan: We could continue this segment with just discussion of this one paper, but there are two more that we want to mention. Let me say now, and we'll probably repeat again, you can read two of these papers @planetary.org. In fact, we'll put the direct link on the show page for this week's episode @planetary.org/radio. We'll get to that where you can find the third paper in a moment. Let's move on to the second one, Increasing the Scope of Planetary Defense Activities, Programs, Strategies, and Relevance in a Post COVID-19 World.

Mat Kaplan: Again, you served as a lead author, Bill Nye authored it with you. It's co-signed again by the society's board of directors. Okay, what are the parallels between the comprehensive planetary defense program you argue for here and the lessons of the COVID-19 panels?

Casey Dreier: This is something we've been talking about for a while as not just a learning opportunity but an opportunity to connect what can be a very abstract idea, which is being hit by a giant space rock for lack of a better term.

Mat Kaplan: Yeah, it's not. The dinosaurs would say it's not that abstract. But, okay.

Casey Dreier: Yeah. Well, they wouldn't say much of anything would they now?

Mat Kaplan: Oh, given the chance.

Casey Dreier: But the idea is, so pandemics have similarities to the situation we find ourselves in with near-earth objects that are potentially hazardous but are unlikely in the scale of one's lifetime to happen. But just because something is unlikely doesn't mean that it's impossible. Right now, obviously with the Coronavirus raging across the world and particularly here in the United States, no one would have predicted this six months ago, or maybe just about six months ago or a year ago, let's say.

Mat Kaplan: Eight months ago.

Casey Dreier: Eight months ago. This was a low probability high impact event. You have to have some sort of planning for those because low probability again does not mean zero. The ultimate, I would say, high impact event would be getting hit by a near-earth object and having that devastating As we've gone through many times on this show and on our website, the consequences are very dire for being hit by a particular large near-earth object people right now, I would say going through a low probability high impact event, this is the time to start talking about other ones.

Casey Dreier: Because it's very relevant to say the value of preparation for those are incredibly high. I drew a parallel in this paper using some early reporting, what's coming out of China and some of the other South Pacific Asian nations that particularly dealt with the SARS virus back in the early 2000s, that they had much more vigorous and prepared systems to deal with viral outbreaks because of similar experiences 20 years ago. You can debate various aspects of those responses but, overall the spread in a lot of those countries have been a lot less than countries that didn't have outbreaks of SARS in the early 2000s.

Casey Dreier: There's an opportunity, I think, that tells you that countries that have had these experiences where there was low probability high impact events are more amenable to putting up investments for similar types of preparation. The public we claim is more open to preparing for these types of events after they experience one. We can start to draw, again, these parallels to near-earth objects which again I should say already have very high levels of support when just pulling the public. It's often put as the first or second most important activity NASA could already be doing.

Casey Dreier: I would argue now that those are probably higher in terms of people's expectations. People in the United States are feeling more likely that a natural disaster is going to happen to them, so there's more uncertainty around these issues. And so there's more, again, political, I would say, willingness to begin to invigorating this program of planetary defense within NASA. Now we're talking to a science community in this paper. A lot of this is not up to the scientific community, but what we wanted to do was try to give them ways in which to frame this question for how they begin to talk about it within NASA and for NASA itself out to members of Congress and the White House.

More:

A Mars Mission Begins, a Comet Exits, and the Future of Planetary Science - The Planetary Society

Fish out those binoculars Minnesota. Theres a rare sky show in the northern sky after sunset this week. And our weather looks perfect.

NASAs Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer discovered C/2020 F3 Neowise in March. The comets nickname Neowise comes form that acronym for that sensor.

So far, the images from NASA are stunning. NASA elaborates on what we're seeing in this image.

Processed data from the WISPR instrument on NASAs Parker Solar Probe shows greater detail in the twin tails of Comet Neowise, as seen on July 5. The lower, broader tail is the comets dust tail, while the thinner, upper tail is the comets ion tail.

NASA | Johns Hopkins APL | Naval Research Lab | Parker Solar Probe | Guillermo Stenborg

The twin tails of Comet Neowise are seen more clearly in this image from the WISPR instrument, which has been processed to increase contrast and remove excess brightness from scattered sunlight, revealing more detail in the comet tails.

The lower tail, which appears broad and fuzzy, is the dust tail of Comet Neowise created when dust lifts off the surface of the comets nucleus and trails behind the comet in its orbit. Scientists hope to use WISPRs images to study the size of dust grains within the dust tail, as well as the rate at which the comet sheds dust.

The upper tail is the ion tail, which is made up of gases that have been ionized by losing electrons in the Suns intense light. These ionized gases are buffeted by the solar wind the Suns constant outflow of magnetized material creating the ion tail that extends directly away from the Sun. Parker Solar Probes images appear to show a divide in the ion tail. This could mean that Comet Neowise has two ion tails, in addition to its dust tail, though scientists would need more data and analysis to confirm this possibility.

This looks like the best week for seeing Neowise in Minnesota. Weather conditions look excellent. Most of Minnesota will see a dry air mass with dew points in the 50s through Thursday. The lack of tropical moisture in the atmosphere makes for clearer skies and better viewing optics.

Dew point forecast for 8 pm Wednesday

NOAA

A few clouds linger across southeast Minnesota tonight, but the rest of Minnesota will enjoy mostly clear skies. Most of Minnesota will see clear skies Wednesday and Thursday evenings.

Sky cover forecast percentage for 9 pm Wednesday

NOAA

To improve your Neowise viewing, get away from city lights. Look NNW about an hour to 80 minutes after sunset. You should see Neowise with the naked eye. But binoculars or a telescope will greatly improve your view.

NASA experts will give viewing tips on #NASAScience Live Wednesday at 3 p.m. EDT 2 p.m. Minnesota time.

Enjoy the rare sight in the northwest evening sky this week.

Excerpt from:

Sky show: Perfect weather for seeing Comet Neowise this week - Minnesota Public Radio News

Comet Neowise as seen from the Czech Republic on the morning of July 6.

Comet Neowise, the most impressive comet in nearly 25 years, is visible now, and will make its closest pass by Earth on July 23.

Emily Kramer, co-investigator on the science team for the NASA Neowise spacecraft that discovered the comet, noted that it's rare for a comet to be bright enough to see with the naked eye.

"It's been quite a while," she told reporters last week. "The last time was 1995-1996 (with comet Hale-Bopp)."

Neowise survived its closest brush with the sun on July 3 and has been heading in our direction ever since.

Over the past couple of weeks, a number of amateur astrophotographers have shared stunning images of the comet captured as it appeared just above the horizon in predawn skies.

Astronauts on the International Space Station have also spotted the comet, aided by their premium vantage point, and NASA's Parker Solar Probe captured the profile of Neowise, showing it has multiple tails.

From the cosmos to your inbox. Get the latest space stories from CNET every week.

According to NASA solar system ambassador Eddie Irizarry, the comet should be easier to see this week as it climbs a little higher in the sky. There are beginning to be a few reports, however, of Neowise growing more faint, so don't delay.

Right now, the advice being shared by many of those who have successfully spotted the comet is to first locate it in the sky using binoculars or a telescope. Once you've found it and its trademark split tail, you should be able to then track it with the naked eye.

July 5 - my third consecutive morning observing Comet NEOWISE. When I held my 7x40 binoculars to my eyes to search for...

After the comet's closest pass by Earth on Thursday it will rise a little higher in the sky on July 24 and 25, in case you miss the actual flyby date. Comets are notoriously fickle things that could always break up and burn out at any moment, so fingers crossed.

Now playing: Watch this: Tips for catching comet Neowise with your camera

1:15

There's a possibility, for the most optimistic of us, that Neowise might brighten dramatically to become a so-called "great comet" that's easily visible and spectacular to see with the naked eye. While there's no strict definition of what a great comet is, it's generally agreed that we haven't seen one since Hale-Bopp.

The comet will be visible toward the northwest and western edges of the sky. A good rule of thumb is to find the big dipper and start looking below it.

Here's where you can spot the comet over the next couple of weeks. Online resources like TheSkyLive also offer similar night sky maps to aid your comet quest.

This diagram from Sky and Telescope shows where to look for comet Neowise in the night sky this month.

If you don't catch the comet before it inevitably fades away in August or sooner, you'll have to wait awhile for its next trip through the inner solar system, currently estimated to happen in the year 8786.

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Bright comet Neowise coming to an evening sky near you: How to catch it - CNET

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) For East Tennesseans, the best comet show in 20 years has been going on this month and its not too late to catch it. In fact, by early next week, viewing times are in the evenings instead of early mornings.

So says Sean Lindsay, astronomy coordinator/research and assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Tennessee. You can hear the excitement in his voice when he starts talking about viewing NEOWISE, a comet just discovered March 27 that wont be visible again to the naked eye from Earth for another 6,800 years.

You got me on a topic Im pretty excited about, he freely admits. Its the best comet Ive seen in 20 years. It has been easily visible with the naked eye. (See some of his photos with this story.)

The NEOWISE comet has been visible from East Tennessee for most of this month, but you had to get up early. The best night I saw it on July 9th. I went up to Foothills Parkway, Lindsay said. But it was also 5:30 a.m.

This week the comet is transitioning from being visible in the early morning hours to being visible at night. And if the weather cooperates, the best viewing might just be Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday ( July 19, 20 and 21). I tried to give you my sweet spots on dates, Lindsay said.

The comet is technically called Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE and Lindsay said you can find it in the northwest sky just below the Big Dipper from probably 9:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. early next week. The best time will likely be around 10 p.m.

On Sunday, the comet will be at 15 degrees above the horizon, or about a fist-and-a-half above the horizon, Lindsay said. Itll be slightly higher in the sky on Monday, but it is beginning to get dimmer.

The views has been impressive.

If its like it was the other day, you see the main part of the comet and the tail very clearly with the naked eye, he said.

I would really, really recommend getting out of Knoxville for the best viewing, he said.

Im probably going to go to the Big South Fork, he added. Just remember to do your planning in Eastern time. The Bandy Creek Campground which has a large parking lot might be the best viewing location.

Pickett CCC Memorial Park could also be a good viewing site. Other possibilities include a parking lot in Norris, a town which is fairly dark at night, and the Cosby or Greenbrier areas of Smokies. Foothills Parkway has several north-facing overlooks but skyglow from Knoxville might be an issue.

If need help finding the comet or want to track its path, Lindsay recommends using Stellarium. Many people have posted information on how to add the comet path to the astronomy program.

Lindsay shared this tip on finding good spots: He scopes out viewing lines of potential locations using the Street View feature in Google Maps.

Hopefully, itll still put on a good show, but if not, its not my fault, he said, joking that comets are a bit like cats: They all have tails, but you cant predict what they will do, he said.

Want to learn more: NASA scientists will be answering questions about the comet on Wednesday at 3 p.m.

LATEST STORIES:

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Best comet show in 20 years: How to catch NEOWISE in East Tennessee - WATE 6 On Your Side

Editors note: The KOIN 6 Weather team is presenting weather and science lessons to help serve our teachers and students as schools close across the nation amid the novel coronavirus response. Click here for more lessons, and click here for complete coverage.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Although there are a ton of fascinating topics about our atmosphere and the weather that we experience from day to day, this topic is about a soaring object out in space. We are going to learn about comets! In fact, there may be a comet soaring out there for you to check right now. The latest comet in view for the United States is comet NEOWISE (July 2020). This comet is one of the brightest that weve seen on earth since 1997! Its not very often that we get to experience the visual bliss of a soaring comet. Are you ready to learn about comets?

WHAT IS A COMET? HAVE YOU SEEN A COMET?!

A comet has been known as a snowball in outer space. Why? It is made of ice, dust, gases and rock. They are leftover particles from the formation of the solar system that occurred a long time ago. These chunks of matter are essentially floating around space and eventually orbit the sun just like the planets and asteroids. However, comets, they tend to have a large orbital path. They likely will show up once in a lifetime. That means, if you get a chance to see a comet, it is a very special moment and experience.

What is the difference between a comet, meteor and asteroid?

An asteroid is a rock that also orbits the sun. There are asteroid belts in space that may be the spawn of a passing asteroid. From time to time they may travel near the earth. If an asteroid collides with another and a piece of that asteroid breaks off, it is called a meteoroid. A meteoroid is essentially a piece of an asteroid, also a rock. If it enters the earths atmosphere and burns up, you get a meteor. If for some reason that meteor doesnt vaporize completely and a piece is found on the earths surface, its known as a meteorite!

Where does a comet come in? Well a comet is much larger and is made of not only rock, but ice and other material. It also orbits the sun, but is on a different path than those of an asteroid. It is also much larger than an asteroid.

STUDY THE IMAGE NOW

Lets learn about some of the elements of a comet that you may see in photos or in person. As you can tell, a comet looks like a burning ball soaring through the dark sky. In fact, when the comet soars closer to the sun, it starts to melt the ice and spew gases out to give the appearance that you see. Each part of the comet has a title:

Nucleus: The core of the comet head.

Coma: Particles and gases make a cloud around the nucleus, called a coma.

Dust and Gas tail: Sunlight pushes dust particles very small dust particles away from the head creating a dust tail. A second tail is made of electrically charged molecules of gas. A tail will look longer the closer it is to the sun.

PHOTOS OF COMET NEOWISE OVER OREGON

Why can we see comets if theyre so far away? We can spot a comet because of the sunlight! Dust driven from a comets nucleus reflects sunlight as it travels through space. You know what else is the reason? Just like the gas tail, certain gases, when heated by the sun, produce light of different colors.

Now with all that in mind, we of course, need the right conditions in our atmosphere to see a comet. We cant be stuck under a layer of clouds or around a bunch of light. Knowing the weather forecast is always an exceptional tool to leading one to a position to get a good view of a passing comet. Now that you know a little more about comets, you can share the information with your friends!

Follow KOIN 6 for the latest news and weather

Information from NASA contributed to this article

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Taking a trip to outer space: What is a comet? - KOIN.com

Once it disappears from view, the comet will not be visible in Earth's skies for another 6,800 years, according to NASA.

While July began with the comet visible low on the horizon in the early morning sky, NEOWISE has now transitioned to become an evening comet, perfectly visible as the skies darken.

It's named after NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, otherwise known as the NEOWISE mission, which discovered it in late March.

You may be able to see it with the naked eye, but grab a pair of binoculars or peer through a small telescope, if you have either, for a better view.

If you live in an urban area with a lot of light pollution, you may want to find a spot to watch the sky that has less light and obstructions, like tall buildings.

After the sun sets, look for the Big Dipper constellation in the northwestern sky, according to NASA. Just below it, you'll see the comet. It looks a bit like a fuzzy star with a tail.

The comet will continue to rise higher above the northwestern horizon for the rest of this month. It will come closest to Earth on July 22 -- just 64 million miles away.

While comets are unpredictable and can disappear from view at any time, astronomers predict that we should be able to see it for the rest of the month.

Comets are really just made up of ice and dust, with some organic material. Many of the comets with long orbits, like NEOWISE, only venture through the inner solar system and close to the sun for a short time.

Scientists compare it to coming out of "cold storage" for the comet because the outer solar system where they originate is so much colder. The warmth of the sun and the inner solar system causes the ice to melt, although astronomers aren't sure why ATLAS broke apart.

After its closest approach to Earth, Comet NEOWISE will continue on its very long orbit to the edge of the solar system, stretching out 715 astronomical units from our sun. (As a comparison, Earth is one astronomical unit from the sun.)

This is why we won't see the comet again in our lifetimes -- it takes thousands of years to travel the outer solar system before returning to the inner solar system.

But, scientists point out, this means the comet isn't exactly new, only new to us, because it previously passed through Earth's skies when humans were present about 6,800 years ago.

Discovering Comet NEOWISE

While Comet NEOWISE was spotted on March 27 by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the mission didn't start out to find comets.

Ten years ago, the mission was launched as WISE and it was designed to do an all-sky map in infrared light.

But the team realized that it was also pretty useful for observing asteroids and comets and measuring their sizes and how reflective they were, said Amy Mainzer, the NEOWISE principal investigator at the University of Arizona, in a NASA press conference this week. The NEOWISE mission has found a couple dozen comets so far.

The WISE mission was only designed to last for about seven months, but NASA asked the team to reactivate it after its prime mission concluded in 2013, and they've been using NEOWISE to watch the skies ever since, Mainzer said. The team estimated that the NEOWISE mission only has about one year left.

"We're excited it's still able to find spectacular things like this comet," Mainzer said.

The team spotted Comet NEOWISE by its infrared emissions, meaning they could pick out its heat signature. In late March, the scientists determined it was a comet and when it would pass close to the sun -- and they've been tracking it ever since.

By observing the comet, the researchers have learned that it's about three miles in diameter, the average size for a comet with a long orbit. And it's incredibly bright, even if it's not as spectacular as Comet Hale-Bopp as witnessed in 1997.

Sometimes when comets that have a lot of mass, like NEOWISE, they can blow apart when they come close to the sun. Their ice becomes heated so quickly that it shreds and destroys the comet, Mainzer said. Because this comet survived, it tells astronomers there is something unique about its structural strength.

The comets in our solar system formed at its very beginning. Gas and dust formed in clumps orbiting in a disk around our young sun, and those clumps became planets, asteroids and comets. The comets were kicked out to the edge of the solar system, so their ice remains pristine.

NASA scientists and the NEOWISE team will continue observing the comet with various instruments and cameras to see how it progresses, said Emily Kramer, co-investigator on the NEOWISE science team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Because the comet is so bright, the scientists expect to get better data, and much more of it, than they typically do for most comets, Kramer said.

Most comets are so faint that they can only be seen using the most powerful telescopes. Scientists are looking forward to learning the composition of this comet based on the data they gather. That composition could reveal more information about the "ingredients" used to make our solar system.

Although this comet takes a long time to complete one orbit around the sun, some that originate further out in the solar system can take hundreds of millions of years to orbit the sun or even longer, Mainzer said. Meanwhile, some of the closer comets only take about five or six years to complete an orbit. Comet NEOWISE is in the middle, taking about 7,000 years.

"This is coming in from a medium-long distance," Mainzer said. "How it got there is a bit of a mystery. It may have had a more distant orbit that was perturbed to create this current orbit."

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You can see Comet NEOWISE this month. Here's what we know about it - CNN

PORTLAND, Maine The newly discovered comet NEOWISE is putting on a show in the early evening skies over Maine right now. Its one of the rare comets to reveal its tail to anyone with a modest set of binoculars and NEOWISE gets even more impressive when you take its picture.

In my life, Ive seen 30 or 40 comets. This is only the fourth one Ive seen that has a tail you can obviously see, said astronomy educator and photographer John Meader of Fairfield.

Meader knows what hes talking about.

Since 1987, hes operated the Northern Stars Planetarium. Its an inflatable star dome that travels to about 100 elementary and middle schools in Maine every year, reaching upwards of 18,000 students. Before that, Meader worked in planetariums at the Francis Malcolm Science Center in Easton and the University of Maine in Orono.

You cant see most comets without a telescope and, most of the time, they look like a star someone tried to erase with an eraser and theres no discernable tail, he said. With this one, you look through binoculars and youll see that tail. Its really clear.

NEOWISE has been visible in Maine for at least a couple weeks but until a few days ago, you had to be up before dawn to see it. Now, its viewable in the evening just after sunset. NEOWISE is expected to be 10 percent brighter by this weekend and it will hang around in the sky until mid-August.

The comets propper name is C/2020 F3 NEOWISE. Its named for NASAs Near Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer orbiting telescope, which first spotted it on March 27. Like all comets, its basically a giant, space-traveling dirty snowball of ice and organic materials leftover after the formation of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago. NEOWISEs tail is made of dust and vaporizing gases given off as it travels close to the sun.

Its worth noting that, as the comet comes close to Earth on its giant orbit around the solar system, this is our only chance to get a good look at it and its conspicuous tail. NEOWISE wont be back this way in any of our lifetimes.

To find the comet yourself, Meader said, just grab some binoculars. Any pair will do. They dont have to be expensive. Their power lies not in making NEOWISE look bigger but by gathering more light than your eyes can on their own.

Scan just above the horizon in the northwest just after sunset and it will pop right into view, Meader said. Youll see it with a nice little tail. Its very sweet.

Its possible, with a very dark sky, to see the comet without binoculars, Meader said, but it will be difficult. Also, he warns that through binoculars, it wont look exactly like the impressive photographs hes taken. Just as the binoculars collect more light with their lenses, a camera takes in even more with long exposures.

You have to remember that when you do photography, youre gathering photons over time, which brightens everything up, Meader said. Your eyes cant do that.

Its the same reason glossy space pictures of the sky always show more stars and a clearer Milky Way than the human eye can detect. Meaders recent photo of NEOWISE in Skowhegan was a 5-second exposure.

To make a photograph of the comet, Meader said photographers will need a camera with manual controls, a tripod and some kind of remote shutter control or timer.

First, find the comet with binoculars and then point your tripod-mounted camera in the same direction, manually focusing it to infinity. Then, crank the ISO up high thats the cameras light sensitivity and open the aperture up all the way. The aperture is the hole inside the lens, controlling how much light gets through.

To make the exposure, set the shutter to something like 5 seconds and fire away. Use a remote control or the timer function which will ensure you dont shake the camera by pressing the shutter button with your finger.

If the picture comes out too light, make the shutter speed a tad faster. If its too dark, make it longer.

But you cant take a very long exposure because the stars will start to trail, Meader said.

Thats because, even though we cant perceive it, the Earth is rotating on its axis, making the stars appear to revolve around the North Star every night.

Meader said its all about experimenting with your cameras settings and admits, theres some nights when his pictures dont come out, either. The important part is to have fun outside, under the heavens, he adds.

It gets you out to someplace interesting, he said. Its getting yourself in front of something of beauty. I like that.

John Meader is hosting a socially-distanced public star party at the Quarry Road Trails in Waterville from 11 to 11:45 p.m. Wednesday.

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Snap a pic of this spectacular comet now -- it won't be back for 6,800 years - Bangor Daily News

Have you ever seen a comet in the flesh? If you live in the northern hemisphere, you can cross that experience off your bucket list before bedtime tonight.

The NEOWISE comet takes its name from the instrument that found it, the repurposed Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope. Launched in 2009, WISEs mission was to map the sky in infrared wavelengths. But after its coolant dissipated, the telescope gaze was turned on a different sort of prey: small objects in our solar system. So far, this orbiting instrument has bagged nearly three hundred nearby asteroids and 28 comets. One of the latter, NEOWISE, has been adorning the pre-dawn sky for weeks. But as of today its emerging in the early evening. It awaits your inspection.

Heres what you have to do: Grab a pair of binoculars and go out into the evening twilight, about an hour after sunset. While the sky becomes darker, look towards the north-northwest and scan just above the horizon. In the coming days, the comet will gradually climb higher, but also become fainter as it pulls away from the Sun.

Once youve spotted NEOWISE, youll be able to pick it out with the naked eye. Obviously, a dark sky is a plus, particularly if you want to see the tail. You might wish to consider a quick road trip to a rural area if you live in an urban or suburban conurbation.

The comet will get no closer than 64 million miles to Earth (on July 22), so no need to dig a bomb shelter. SETI Institute astronomer Peter Jenniskens also advises that there will be no meteor shower associated with this object.

Seeing a comet in the sky used to be taken as an omen (see: King Harold and the Battle of Hastings.) NEOWISE may not be an omen, but is an opportunity. Sure, you could bide your time until Halleys comet returns, but that will be in 2061. Waiting will be a drag.

More observing details published bySky & Telescopecan be found athttps://skyandtelescope.org/press-releases/new-bright-visitor-comet-neowise/

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Don't Miss the Comet! - SETI Institute

Its been quite a while since weve seen a bright comet in our skies. Many stargazers remember the show put on by Comet Hale-Bopp 23 years ago, but most folks cant recall seeing another one since.

One is now swinging past the Earth and, while it wont compare to Hale-Bopp, it has become barely visible to the unaided eye.

Im referring to a visitor from space called C/2020 F3, aka Comet NEOWISE, named for the NASA space telescope that discovered it: Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.

Comet NEOWISE, like all others, is one of billions of small icy remnants of the primordial solar system that tumble silently through space. Occasionally, one of these cosmic nomads drifts inward toward the suns heat, and its ices disintegrate into a cloud of gas and dust around its nucleus (the coma). Sunlight and the solar wind act as a fan and blow this material outward to create one or two tails that always point away from our star.

With a diameter of about 3 miles, the icy nucleus of NEOWISE is fairly large but much too small to be seen with the eye or even a powerful telescope. Its long tail, however, can be seen as it stretches away from the direction of the sun (below the horizon after dark, of course).

As compact as a comets tail may appear to us from Earth, its material is actually distributed over tens of millions of miles; in fact, to achieve the density of the air we breathe, a comets entire tail would need to be compressed to fit into the size of an average suitcase. In other words, a comets tail is the closest thing to nothing thats still something!

Comet NEOWISE is a type of comet known as a periodic comet; it passes through our cosmic neighborhood about every 6,800 years. During this visit, it swung close to the sun in early July and brightened enough to become barely visible to the unaided eye during predawn hours.

Now its crossing over into the evening sky, and on July 22, it will reach its nearest approach to the Earth of 64.3 million miles.

Just how bright NEOWISE will appear as it passes us this week is anyones guess. Will it be bright enough to see with the unaided eye, or will it fade as it recedes once again into the depths of space? No one can say for sure.

Comets are notoriously fickle. As noted comet-hunter David Levy likes to say: Comets are like cats. They both have tails and they both do what they want.

Their unpredictable and ghostly nature has led people over the ages even some today to interpret them as cosmic harbingers of doom.

Nevertheless, it may be possible to spot this interplanetary nomad in the evening sky this week if youve got very dark skies far from the lights of large cities. Over the next week, NEOWISE will appear in the northwestern sky shortly after dark, just below the Big Dipper.

Be sure to check out the accompanying illustration and grab binoculars to locate and enjoy the amazing interplanetary iceball this week after dusk!

Dennis Mammana is an astronomy writer, author, lecturer and photographer working from under the clear dark skies of the Anza-Borrego Desert in the San Diego County backcountry. Contact him at [emailprotected] and follow him on Twitter: @dennismammana. The opinions expressed are his own.

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Dennis Mammana: The Iceball Cometh This Week with Comet NEOWISE - Noozhawk

Comet NEOWISE pictures are being posted from around the world as it appears in the night sky, and Nanaimos astral shooters are producing a substantial portfolio of locally made comet images.

Some are stunning and created by photographers with sophisticated equipment and years of experience in astrophotography, while others are struggling to catch images of the comet before it moves along on its 6,800-year orbital journey around our solar system.

For those frustrated by early attempts to capture NEOWISE on camera, Tony Puerzer, Nanaimo Astronomy Society vice-president, says sophisticated camera and telescopic equipment arent needed to create quality comet images.

Even the latest model smartphones, with night mode photography settings, can capture an image of the comet, but Puerzer recommends an entry-level digital single lens reflex camera, with an inexpensive 50 millimetre focal length lens as the best starting point to create clear, sharp comet images.

You want even an inexpensive DSLR and something to put it on, be it a tripod or a fence post or something that will hold it steady, Puerzer said. Because youre not tracking it with a [star tracking] telescope mount, youll be limited in the time you have to shoot.

READ ALSO: Astronomer discusses search for life on moons of Jupiter, Saturn

Because the Earth is spinning at about 1,600 kilometres per hour, exposure times of longer than a few seconds will cause stars in the final image to appear as streaks, or trails of light that become longer as exposure time increases and objects, such as comets, will appear blurred. Telescopes designed for astrophotography have special tracking mounts that compensate for the rotation of the Earth and prevent star trails.

A workaround for lack of a tracking mount is to use a fast camera lens, with an large aperture that allows more light to pass through to the cameras sensor, thereby shortening the exposure time. Most camera manufacturers offer relatively inexpensive 50mm fixed focal length lenses, which have a large maximum aperture of about f/1.8.

If you had a 50mm lens a nice fast 50 would be ideal like a Canon camera or a Nikon with a nifty 50, that would be [awesome]. That would be the lowest cost, best thing, but then youre limited to maybe six or eight seconds before the stars start trailing because everythings turning, Puerzer said.

READ ALSO: Strings of lights seen in night sky over Cowichan Valley

A wider view angle 28mm lens can allow for longer exposures before star trails become apparent, but the lens magnification will be about half that of a 50mm lens so the comet image will appear smaller.

To shorten exposure times even more, Puerzer recommends increasing the cameras ISO (light sensitivity) setting to a higher sensitivity.

Just crank her up and youre looking at maybe 10 seconds for the picture, so the stars dont trail, he said.

Finally, Puerzer recommends focusing manually, instead of using the cameras automatic focusing system, to make the stars appear sharp in the viewfinder, which will also bring Comet NEOWISE sharply into focus.

Thats basically it, Puerzer said. Youve got a fast lens, high ISO and then the shutter speed is really limited because the sky is turning and that should get you something. Thats your recipe.

Puerzer said NEOWISE is currently moving away from the sun, but coming closer to the Earth, which might make it appear dimmer, but larger before it disappears from the night skies by about the end of July, so there are still plenty of opportunities to capture images.

The comet appears low above the horizon in the northern sky from early evening to dawn, but viewing is best when it becomes dark enough for the stars to appear and in areas where there is little or no artificial light pollution. Jack Point, Neck Point and Pipers Lagoon parks can be good options, or anywhere there is a clear view to the northern horizon. Puerzer said hes had good views from Wheatcroft Park, near Pipers Lagoon Park.

Anyone who would like to share the results of their efforts to photograph the comet is also welcome to post their images on Nanaimo Astronomy Societys Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/groups/nanaimoastronomy/.

Theres tons of people who arent [Nanaimo Astronomy Society] members that are on the group, Puerzer said.

For more news from Vancouver Island and beyond delivered daily into your inbox, please click here.

READ ALSO: Rare comet dazzles night sky over Saanich Peninsula

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Vancouver Island skywatcher offers tips on how to capture Comet NEOWISE - vancouverislandfreedaily.com

Don't miss a once-in-6,800-year opportunity.The NEOWISE comet, first discovered in March, hasjust recently become visible to the human eye.

"The last time we had a comet this bright anywhere in our sky, north or south hemisphere, was in 2006," said Kelly Beatty, space reporter and senior contributing editor of Sky and Telescope magazine. "Some people might remember Comet Hale-Bopp back in 1997. This is a little more subtle, but it's still very pretty."

The name NEOWISE isan acronym for the spacecraft that discovered this comet, theNear-Earth Object Wide-field InfraredSurvey Explorer, a NASAspace telescope.

Beatty told Radio Boston that while comets swing by the Earth pretty regularly, they are not always bright enough to be easily visible so take advantage while you can.

On how the comet will look:

"It has a bright point-like head, which you could make out by eye. When you look at it with binoculars, andI encourage that, you see this graceful sort of tail draped upward from it that is telling you this is not an ordinary star by any means."

On how to find the NEOWISE comet in the sky:

"The less light pollution you have, the better. In particular, you need a clear view toward the northwest... Note where the sun sets and around 9 p.m., go out and take a turn to the right. Look up and you'll see the Big Dipper hanging in the sky. If you don't see the Big Dipper, then your chances of seeing the comet are really poor."

"Draw a line visually down from the right edge of the Big Dipper toward the horizon. ... Clench your fist and hold it out at arm's length ... and about one fist above the horizon you will find Comet NEOWISE."

On how he characterizes the makeup of a comet:

"Comets are dirty snowballs. They were created 4.5 billion years ago out on the fringes of our solar system. They have been stone-cold for all that time. This one has fallen in from the great beyond and, when it gets near the sun, the sun's heat vaporizes or technically sublimates the ices on it and causes those gases, along with dust, to go flying off. The comet itself that core is only about three miles across, but it creates this huge cloud of gas and dust around it and the tail, which reflects sunlight, makes it much more obvious than it otherwise would be."

"If this were only an asteroid three miles across, we'd never see it."

Is there anything else you can look for in the sky this month?

"If you are a really early riser, get up and go outside again. You need a clear view in all directions. At 4:30 a.m. right now, you have a chance to see all five of the planets that are visible to the eye...You look toward the east and you'll see a crescent moon and the brilliant planet Venus. Draw a line toward the lower left. That's when you'll come across Mercury, sweep your gaze to the other side of the sky. You'll pass Mars, which is high up, and then over in the southwest are Jupiter and Saturn about to set. Do it now because in a week you won't be able to see all five at one time."

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See Comet NEOWISE Now, Or You'll Have To Wait 6800 Years To See It Again - WBUR

Members of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers club set up at Binbrook Conservation Area to look at Comet NEOWISE and other celestial bodies on July 13.

Carlos Osorio/The Globe and Mail

Comets are like cats, Canadian comet hunter and author David Levy once wrote. They have tails and they do precisely what they want.

Fortunately for backyard stargazers, Comet NEOWISE, a giant ball of ice and gas that is currently hurtling through our planetary neighbourhood, seems to want to put on a show. It is not as easy to spot as some of the great comets of the past. However, it is one of the best in years and makes an easy target for observers with clear, dark skies or even under city lights when helped out with a good pair of binoculars.

The comet was discovered in late March by NASAs Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, an earth-orbiting satellite whose acronym, NEOWISE, gives the comet its name. Since then, the comet has been racing through the inner solar system, reaching its closest point to the sun on July 3. It is now on the outward leg of its brief visit and for the next week or so will be well-placed for viewing at twilight in the Northern Hemisphere.

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Comet NEOWISE, as seen over the Binbrook Conservation Area.

Carlos Osorio/The Globe and Mail

Comets are icy fragments left over from the formation of the solar system. They range from less than a kilometre to tens of kilometres in diameter and spend most of their time far from the sun where they are too small and too faint to observe.

Its only when a comet draws near to the suns warmth that the celestial magic happens. Frozen gasses, including water vapour and carbon dioxide, which make up the bulk of the comets mass, are released, forming a glowing ball, or coma. Dust particles freed up by the vaporizing ice trail away from the comet, catching the sunlight and forming a tail that grows longer and brighter the closer the comet is to the sun.

All of this looks far better in a photo, where a long exposure can reveal the full extent and colour of the tail in all its glory. In most cases, what the eye sees, is only the diffuse glow of the coma, which may appear as a tiny fuzzball in the sky, sometimes with a stubby tail sticking out to one side.

Thats essentially how Comet NEOWISE appears now and this weekend is prime viewing time across most of Canada. The comet is low in the sky, skirting the northwestern horizon at dusk. To find it, start looking about one hour after sunset roughly 10 p.m. You need a good view to the northwest that is free from obstructions and preferably as dark as possible (I found it by observing from my local schoolyard in Toronto.)

The Globe and Mail (Source: Skyandtelescope.org)

For city dwellers, there are no bright stars in this part of the sky, but the familiar pattern of the Big Dipper can be found by looking higher up, where the dippers handle reaches nearly overhead. The dipper can serve as a guide for where to sweep the sky with binoculars.

If youve seen a comet before, youll know exactly when youve found it. If not, be patient. As long at the northwestern sky is cloud free and you are looking where the map indicates, the comets distinct glow should pop into view.

If you are underwhelmed by what you see, consider that Comet NEOWISE will be about 103 million kilometres away when its at its closest to Earth next week. But by the time it reaches the farthest extent of its elongated orbit, it will be more than 100 billion kilometres away. The comet will not be seen in our skies again till sometime around the 89th century.

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How to find Comet NEOWISE this weekend - The Globe and Mail

New images of the bright Comet NEOWISE show signs of a sodium tail, giving scientists fresh insight on what's happening on the surface.

Comet brightness is notoriously hard to predict due to the complexity of surface outgassing, so any insight into these surface processes is useful to scientists. NEOWISE, formally known as comet C/2020 F3, is relatively bright in the sky for Northern Hemisphere observers, but nobody knows how the comet's brightness will fare as it races towards the sun.

Images of the comet were obtained on July 8 using the Planetary Science Institute's (PSI) Input/Output facility, which has also spotted sodium in Mercury's comet-like tail as well as Jupiter's atmosphere during past observations.

Related: How to see Comet NEOWISE in the night sky this month More: Amazing photos of Comet NEOWISE from the Earth and space

NEOWISE and comets like it are made of dust, gas and plasma (ionized gas). As comets rocket toward the sun from interstellar space or the outer solar system, sunlight causes ice in the comet to turn directly into gas (or sublime). As the ice gasses away, it pulls material from the comet's surface with it.

Scientists can already get a sense of cometary activity by looking at the dust coming from a comet, which can move faster if the particles are tiny and more easily pushed by sunlight. Slower particles tend to be larger and harder to move around. These individual particles affect how the dust tail is shaped.

Like dust, atomic sodium also is affected by sunlight, although it has more specific changes.

"Its [atomic sodium's] momentum kick comes from a very particular wavelength of yellow light the same color seen in sodium vapor street lamps," research team member Jeffrey Morgenthaler, a PSI senior scientist, said in a statement.

"Thanks to acceleration by intense sunlight," co-author and Boston University research scientist Carl Schmidt added in the same statement, "the sodium tail takes on a different shape than the tail seen in off-band filtered images, which are dominated by reflected light from dust. In comparison, the sodium tail is narrower, longer and points directly away from the sun."

Sunlight's push on sodium atoms tends to be stronger than its effect on dust and other gases that come off comets. It is difficult to see sodium tails, however, due to the sun's emissions. Notable examples of comets with sodium tails include Hale-Bopp (the famed 1997 naked eye-comet) and the notorious Comet ISON, which fell apart shortly after rounding the sun in 2013.

Morgenthaler and Schmidt will continue to observe NEOWISE as it rounds the sun. They are also using Monte Carlo computer models to simulate the sodium tail and estimate outgassing rates and speeds.

It was not revealed in the statement exactly when the team plans to submit their results to a journal for peer review, but it is common when observing quickly changing astronomical phenomena like NEOWISE to release interim information to keep the community informed.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Comet NEOWISE has a sodium tail. Here's what it looks like. - Space.com

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.

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

Photographers who chose to stay up late Monday night hit the astronomy jackpot when it comes to shooting the night sky.

In the starring role was Comet NEOWISE, one of the brightest comets to be seen in years.

But adding to the backdrop was the aurora borealis, and the Alberta-discovered atmospheric phenomena known as STEVE.

Photographer Chris Ratzlaff said Monday night was the first time hed been out to photograph the aurora since the fall.

He composed an amazing shot with the Okotoks glacial erratic below the comet and the green glow of the aurora.

While he had some pro gear to take his shot, he said the comet is bright enough to capture with a newer phone. He tried a few shots with his, just to see if he could.

He said to use a tripod if possible, or find something to stabilize the phone.

I was sitting in a chair and I had my arms stabilized against my knees, he said.

Comet NEOWISE is seen above Downtown Calgary skyline on Tuesday, July 14, 2020. The newly discovered comet has been visible in northerly latitudes for the past week and can be seen with the naked eye.Azin Ghaffari / Postmedia

Ratzlaff said although it was initially an early morning comet, the odds of seeing it at any time of night are growing.

Its definitely an all-evening event, he said. Basically sunset to sunrise. You want to be out.

He also said it helps to have younger eyes if you want to spot it.

I took my daughter out Saturday night and she spotted it immediately and without guidance from me, said Ratzlaff.

To find it, he said look to the right of the big dipper. The two stars in the cups bottom will point in the general direction of the comet.

Comet NEOWISE is seen near a windmill outside Calgary.Comet NEOWISE

If you have an SLR-style camera, he suggested starting with an exposure of 1/3 of a second at f2.8 if possible, and an ISO of 3200. A tripod is a must.

Ratzlaff said people who are really lucky may capture the comets two tails.

You get the dust trail and then you get the ion trail, he said. The ion trail is very straight a straight line out from the head of the comet its kind of blue in colour.

Many photos posted on social media Tuesday featured the aurora with the comet, but also STEVE, which coincidentally was named by Ratzlaff.

The aurora-like beam of energy was seen in a photo taken by Chandresh Kedhambadi, who got his shot near Bragg Creek.

Chandresh Kedhambadi captured this amazing shot of Comet NEOWISE with the astronomical phenomenon known as STEVE seen on the left, as well as the green glow of the aurora.jpg

Ratzlaff expects NEOWISE to be just as bright as it was Monday for at least two more nights. The comet is getting closer to earth, which could add to the brightness. At the same time, its moving away from the sun, which is what causes the tail to be so apparent.

Its so hard to say the running joke is, comets do what they want to do.

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Calgary photographers take pictures of Comet NEOWISE with the aurora - Calgary Sun

Comet Neowise has been tracing a brilliant path through the skies over Ireland in recent days, and will continue to do so for more nights to come over the rest of July.

Local photographer Felix Sproll captured the stunning pictures seen here from Mutton Island last Friday, rewarded for heading out in the wee hours with amazing pictures of the comet lit up in the skies over Galway.

Comet Neowise over Mutton Island lighthouse credit: Felix Sproll Photography

At the start it only became visible just before sunrise, but now its visible the whole night round, Felix says.

Theres no difference really from once it gets dark at like half 11 till it starts getting bright again.

The pictures taken from Mutton Island include two showing the comet over the city, and another Disney perfect moment of it tracing the sky over the lighthouse.

Felix also captured the jaw dropping sight of the comet over Pine Island on Derryclare Lough in Connemara, with the Twelve Bens reaching up for it in the background, which you can see on his website at felixsproll.com. Or check him out on Instagram @felix.sproll for more incredible nature photography of Galway.

Neowise was first discovered by NASAs Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer in March.

On July 3 it passed the closest point of its orbit to the sun, known as the perihelion, at just 44 million kilometres from the star, a stage that many comets do not survive, but Neowise did.

Neowise over Galway City credit: Felix Sproll Photography

For anyone interested in doing a bit of comet watching themselves, conditions are pretty easy to see it right now he says, as long as the skies are clear.

Keep an eye on the weather, thats probably the main thing in Ireland. You need a clear night. If you look north, you have a good chance of seeing it.

You dont even have to have an expensive camera to grab yourself a picture of Neowise right now because its just so bright in the sky Felix adds.

Comet Neowise over the Long Walk credit: Felix Sproll Photography

From tonight onwards the comet will be visible in the sky over Ireland for the next fortnight.

Neowise will be closest to Earth on July 23, passing 103 million kilometres from the planet. You can see it with your naked eye, but astronomers recommend using binoculars for a really good view.

Unlike some comets such as Halley, which return on a semi-regular basis, Neowise wont be seen again for a long time once it completes its passage in the next few weeks.

The next stage of its 6,800 year orbit will take it back out to the far edges of the solar system for a long, deep freeze before it graces our skies again millennia from now.

image credit: Felix Sproll @felix.sproll felixsproll.com

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Breathtaking images of comet Neowise over Galway City - Galway Daily

This month, a cosmic visitor is gracing the skies and its putting on quite the show. Nicknamed NEOWISE after the telescope that first spotted it, a comet swept past the sun on July 3 and has since become visible to the naked eye.

Comet NEOWISE is expected to be at its brightest and easiest to see in mid-July, though it is already surpassing expectations for its naked-eye brightness. However, comets are known to fizzle out at any moment.

According to NASAs Eddie Irizarry, it should remain visible just before and around the time of first light until July 11. You may also be able to see it before sunrise on Saturday. The comet will then dip below the horizon as it transitions from being an early riser to an evening sensation.

Starting around July 12 you will be able to see the comet in the evening as well, Lecky Hepburn tells Scientific American. About an hour after sunset, it will appear near the northwestern horizon. As the month progresses, it will rise higher in the sky, moving from the constellation Lynx toward the Big Dipper.

Comet NEOWISE is expected to be closest to the Earth on July 23, so if it remains bright, during that week will be the best time to see it. That will also be during a new moon when the sky will be dark and when the comet will be visible before midnight, according to Forbes.

Comet NEOWISE was first discovered on March 27 by NASAs Near-Earth Objects Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) space telescope.

The newly discoveredComet NEOWISE also called C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) survived its closest encounter with the sun July 3 without breaking up and has become visible in the Northern Hemisphere.

Photographers, like Tyler Schlitt, in Washington, MO, have been getting up very early to get pictures of the comet. He reminds those looking to get photos to get a far from the lights of the city as possible and dont forget about summer humidity.

In July, you typically have those high humidities so your camera is going to fog up as soon as you walk outside from cold to hot. Typically, you want your camera the same temperature, so I leave mine in the car. I live in the middle of nowhere. I feel safe enough to do that. You can leave it in the garage. You can leave it in a shed that your lock, says Schlitt.

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