Comet NEOWISE
What is Comet NEOWISE?
Comets· Nucleus ~5 km. The comet of July 2020 — the first naked-eye great comet for the northern hemisphere since Hale–Bopp, photographed worldwide with its golden dust tail and blue ion tail in the dawn and dusk sky. Replay its 6,800-year orbit and the July 2020 sky in the simulators.
Where Comet NEOWISE is in your sky right now: https://nowsky.org/solar/sky?sel=comet:neowise&loc=seoul&sd=2020-07-15T12:30Z — location and time set automatically, no login.
Past visits and the next return
Orbit and period
| Nucleus | ~5 km |
|---|---|
| Perihelion | 2020-07-03, 0.29 AU |
| Period | ~6,800 yr |
| Note | best northern naked-eye comet since 1997 |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Frequently asked
- How close does Comet NEOWISE get to the Sun?
- 2020-07-03, 0.29 AU.
- How long is the orbital period of Comet NEOWISE?
- ~6,800 yr.
- What is notable about Comet NEOWISE?
- best northern naked-eye comet since 1997.
- Where is Comet NEOWISE in the sky right now?
- Open the sky view for your location and time and it shows the position in the sky right now.
An orbit stretched by the passage
On its way into the inner solar system NEOWISE's orbital period is computed at about 4,500 years; on its way out after perihelion it is about 6,800. The gravity of the planets, Jupiter above all, altered the comet's orbital energy slightly during the passage and pushed its aphelion farther out. Every visit reshapes a comet's orbit a little, and the return period is recalculated each time rather than fixed.
That is why "around the year 8800" for the next visit is an approximation: in the meantime the gravity of passing stars or the galactic tide can disturb the orbit near aphelion (about 700 AU). After perihelion NEOWISE crossed Earth's orbit outward in August 2020, passed Jupiter's in 2021, and clears Neptune's by the end of the decade to spend the following millennia receding from the Sun.
The comet in depth
Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) was discovered on 27 March 2020 by NASA's infrared space telescope of the same name. All eyes were on its perihelion on 3 July, just 0.29 AU from the Sun, to see whether the nucleus would survive — and the roughly 5-km body came through intact, brightening to about magnitude 1. Arriving during COVID lockdowns, it gave many people their first comet from their own doorstep.
In mid-July northern observers could spot it with the naked eye below the Big Dipper, in the northeast before dawn and the northwest after dusk. Photographs captured a golden curved dust tail and a straight blue ion tail splitting apart, and astronauts on the International Space Station photographed it rising over Earth's limb. Its passage through the inner solar system stretched the orbit, so it will not return for about 6,800 years.
Track NEOWISE in the orbit view to see it dive inside Mercury's orbit and whip back out. In the Sky view, move to Seoul on the evening of 15 July 2020 to replay the comet low in the northwestern sky.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.