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Comet with tail heading toward the sun may outshine the moon
A newly discovered comet that is heading toward the sun may prove to be the celestial event of the century. (Ligustri Rolando/NASA/Courtesy)
A newly discovered comet has the potential to outshine the moon says NASA.
Two amateur astronomers in Russia were said to have found the Comet ISON, named after the International Scientific Optical Network that made the discovery.
The comet will be able to be watched from Earth next November through to January 2014,said the Space Reporter.
It is supposedly two miles in length making it one of the largest comets or asteroids ever discovered in the solar system.
NASA said that it will likely fly within 1.2 million miles from the center of the sun in late November 2013, according to Reuters.
The Russian astronomers described their unique discovery on a mailing list hosted by Yahoo.
“The object was slow and had a unique movement. But we could not be certain that it was a comet, because the scale of our images are quite small and the object was very compact,” Artyom Novichonok wrote, according to Discovery News.
Reuters reported that as the comet near the sun, the ice on its surface will begin to vaporize.
As the ice melts, the vapor will create an amazing tail that may be visible in the night sky without the use of a telescope.
Even the Curiosity Rover on Mars will take a few pictures from another angle as it sails by.
It is believed that Comet hailed from the Oort Cloud, frozen rocks that get bumped out of their orbit from time to time.
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