human fascination with the night sky can be traced back to ancient times. If you are comet-smitten, there is good news for you. We rarely get to see a “good” comet when it is at its best.
Most comets are brightest when nearest to the sun just before they are hidden in the sun's glare or below its horizon.
Swinging it
A recently discovered comet named Comet McNaught (c/2009 R1), (thoka chukka in Telugu and dhoomkethu in Hindi) is currently swinging through the inner solar system and brightening rapidly as it approaches the sun at 0.45 A.U. on July 2 at Perihelion. The comet's green atmosphere is larger than the planet Jupiter while its long willowy tail stretches more than a million kilometres through space.
In the next few days, one can find this comet gliding through constellations of Perseus and Auriga in the north eastern sky before sunrise.
One must use a telescope or binocular to see the dim and diffuse, circular patch of light.
Beautiful omen
Through the ages, comets were commonly viewed as omens, both good and bad, because of their unusual shape and sudden appearance.
A comet is an icy small solar system body that, when close enough to the sun, displays a visible coma (a thin, fuzzy, temporary atmosphere), and sometimes also a tail.
Near Earth
According to the Planetary Society of India, on June 15 and 16, this comet will be at a distance of 1.13 A.U. (16, 90, 45, 593 km) from earth (the nearest it can get) in its orbit thus increasing its brightness.
Brightest
Currently, this comet is on the threshold of the naked eye's visibility and expected to become as bright as the stars of the Big Dipper (Saptarishi) before the end of the month. Almost every year, we are visited by comets from the outer reaches of our solar system.
Comets are small members of the solar system, usually a few miles or kilometres in diameter. They have been described as ‘dirty snowballs' by astronomer Fred Whipple and are thought to be made of dust, ice (water, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide) some carbon-containing (organic) materials (e.g. tar) and a rocky center (some comets).
