C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) facts for kids
|
|
Quick facts for kids Discovery |
|
|---|---|
| Discovery date | March 27, 2020 |
Comet NEOWISE, also known as C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), is a special comet that travels backwards compared to most objects in our Solar System. It was found on March 27, 2020, by scientists using the NEOWISE space telescope. When it was first seen, it was about 300 million kilometers (186 million miles) from the Sun.
This comet became very famous because it was one of the brightest comets people could see without a telescope. It was the brightest comet visible from the Northern Hemisphere since Comet Hale–Bopp in 1997.
Contents
Discovering Comet NEOWISE
Comet NEOWISE was first spotted by the NEOWISE space telescope. This telescope looks for objects in space using infrared light. When it was discovered, the comet was still quite far away. It looked like a faint, fuzzy spot in the telescope's images.
Scientists gave it the official name C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). The "C" means it's a non-periodic comet, which means it won't return for a very long time. "2020 F3" tells us when it was found. "NEOWISE" is the name of the telescope that discovered it.
Why Comet NEOWISE Was So Bright
Comets are often called "dirty snowballs." They are made of ice, dust, and rock. As a comet gets closer to the Sun, the ice heats up and turns directly into gas. This gas and dust form a huge cloud around the comet called a "coma." It also creates a long, glowing tail.
Comet NEOWISE got very close to the Sun in July 2020. This made it heat up a lot. It created a very large and bright coma and a long, beautiful tail. This is why it became so easy to see from Earth. It even had two tails: one made of dust and another made of gas.
Seeing Comet NEOWISE from Earth
After passing close to the Sun, Comet NEOWISE became visible to people on Earth. It was best seen in the early morning sky at first. Later, it moved to the evening sky. People in the Northern Hemisphere had the best views.
Many people took amazing photos of the comet. It could be seen with the naked eye, especially in dark areas away from city lights. Binoculars or a small telescope made the view even better. The comet slowly faded as it moved away from the Sun and Earth.
Images for kids
-
Discovery image - the comet appears as three fuzzy red dots in this composite of three infrared images taken by NEOWISE on March 27, 2020
-
July 7, 2020, Golden Gate Bridge, California, United States
-
Inverted telescope image photographed on July 9, 2020
-
July 14, 2020 near the San Francisco Peaks in the Flagstaff dark sky preserve
-
July 17, 2020, 18:59 UTC over Asterousia, Crete, as it entered into Ursa Major
-
Midnight, July 18, 2020 - in a time-lapse taken from the Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, U.S. the view was rotating because the lens was on a tracking mount
-
Above Chimney Rock on July 18, 2020
-
July 19, 2020 in Villanovaforru (Sardinia, Italy)
-
July 20, 2020
-
July 21, 2020 in Quebec, Canada
-
Joshua Tree National Park, a dark-sky preserve, on July 21, 2020
-
Hubble image taken on August 8, 2020
.jpg)
.jpg)
