It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
A new celestial visitor – a comet – was discovered by Japanese astronomer Masayuki Iwamoto in late 2018.
This comet is fast! Comet C/2018 Y1 (Iwamoto) is traveling through space at the amazing speed of 147,948 miles per hour (238,099 km/h) or 66 km per second, relative to Earth.
The best nights for observing the comet (with binoculars and small telescopes) should be on February 11 and 12, but is already visible with optical aid. Recent estimates suggest the newly found comet might reach a brightness or magnitude between 6.5 and 7.5 , which means it should be easily seen with small telescopes and binoculars. It will not be visible to the eye alone.
Comet Iwamoto doesn't visit us very often. Following a highly elliptical 1371-year orbit, its last passage through the inner solar system was around 648 AD (unrecorded), and its next won't happen until 3390 AD. Therefore, if you want to see the comet, now is the time to look.