A celestial visitor to the inner solar system discovered by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission is giving people in central Maine a good look at a comet for several days before it takes off into the distance, not to return for 6,800 years.
The comet has been named after its discoverer, NEOWISE, which uses a repurposed astronomical space telescope to detect and track near-Earth objects such as asteroids and comets, according to the space agency’s website. Several objects the system has detected have been labeled PHAs, potentially hazardous asteroids.
To get a good look at the comet, NASA advises avoiding well-lit places, using binoculars or a small telescope to view the comet, and looking into the northwest sky after sunset, when the comet will rise increasingly higher in the sky.
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