The only comet in life Neowise has already been captured by astrophotographers worldwide. But Earth is not the only place where the comet is visible: Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are being treated with their own cosmic fireworks as the comet crosses the sky throughout July.
As Neowise Survived its journey around the sun on July 3, it has made its way to Earth, visible to the naked eye during clear skies for people around the world. Last week, ISS astronauts captured photos of a time lapse of the comet, called one of the brightest in decades, that have been collected in a spectacular video in real time.
The artist and scientist Seán Doran, whose work was exhibited at the Natural History Museum in London before the coronavirus blockade, created the video by obtaining hundreds of images from the NASA database. Doran told CBS News on Tuesday that he has spent years creating these types of videos because the time lapses are too fast to appreciate “how beautiful the Earth is when viewed from space.”
Doran obtained 550 images from the ISS file to create the video, process and interpolate the sequence to its seven-minute real-time equivalent. He also tweeted a time lapse of the moment, highlighting the impressive event in just 15 seconds.
The video shows the frozen Neowise object, named after the NASA mission that recently discovered it, dragged by its massive tail of dust as it rises beyond our planet. The comet almost seems to be heading towards Earth, but don’t worry, it’s not a threat.
The video also captured a simultaneous cosmic phenomenon: bright blue noctilucent clouds. These rare “space clouds” form when sunlight bounces off ice particles in the upper atmosphere.
Astronaut Bob Behnken, who recently thrown out to the ISS on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, he said he hopes his images of the comet will serve as a reminder to people on Earth to care for the planet.
“If we got to a dispute at sunrise, just before the sun came up, that comet became visible during that short period of time when it was still close to the sun, but the sun was still hidden by Earth,” Behnken told The The New York Times podcast The Daily last week. “It was an incredible sight to be able to see and something that we try to capture in the few moments that we have to look out the window.”
Astronomers discovered Neowise in March, and it nearly broke apart dangerously when it approached the sun earlier this month. The comet has been putting on an impressive show in the first hours before sunrise in the northern hemisphere.
But late sleepers need not worry: the comet began to appear on the night of this week. To see it, people in the northern hemisphere can look up into the northwest sky, just below the Big Dipper, commonly known as the Big Dipper constellation.
Scientists say the comet will be visible for about another month. In conditions with little light pollution, it may be visible to the naked eye, but NASA recommends using binoculars or a telescope to detect its long tail.
Newowise’s closest approach to Earth comes on July 22, at a distance of approximately 64 million miles. The event is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience: it takes about 6,800 years for the comet to complete its path around the sun.
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