Astronomers in Pennsylvania and throughout the world have trained their telescopes on the movements of Comet Ison. Since it’s discovery, everyone from enthusiastic amateurs with a telescope to astronomers have turned their attention to comet Ison.
Cosmic Mike is a Senior Astronomy Educator. He says “it was sort of dubbed the potential comet of the century. Which means it would have been like the best comet in the last 100 years.”
Comet Ison made its way around the sun on Thanksgiving Day around 2PM. It’s made up of rock and ice just like all comets. That ice is what reflects sunlight allowing for us to see it here on earth.
The 3 mile wide comet broke apart. But a part of it came around the other side of the sun. Cosmic Mike says “it`s now going to be heading towards the direction of earth. There`s no chance of a collision going on.”
But there is a chance the rest of us will see it. Cosmic Mike says “the best time you`d want to look for Comet Ison would be about thirty minutes before sunrise in the morning sky and December first is a real good morning.” But the opportunity will be a brief one. Cosmic Mike says ‘this was it`s first visit to the solar system so it’s also a once in a lifetime event. Once it passes earth that`s it.”