Christmas comet close flyby tonight: How, when to see Comet 46P/Wirtanen - AL.com

Skywatchers will get a chance to see a passing comet in the night sky on Dec. 16.

46P/Wirtanen will make one of the 10 closest comet flybys of Earth in 70 years and you may even be able to see it without a telescope, according to NASA.

The comet will approach the Earth at a distance of 7l.1 million miles, or about 30 lunar distances from the Earth,

"This will be the closest comet Wirtanen has come to Earth for centuries and the closest it will come to Earth for centuries," said Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. What's more, Chodas said, "This could be one of the brightest comets in years, offering astronomers an important opportunity to study a comet up close with ground-based telescopes, both optical and radar."

Chodas said while the brightness of comets can be hard to predict, it’s possible it could be visible with binoculars or to the naked eye in the form of a dim blur of glowing blue/gray light. The best place to see the comet will be looking towards the Taurus constellation.

You can see detailed information on viewing the comet here.

The comet is named for astronomer Carl Wirtanen, who discovered it in 1948 at Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton in Santa Clara County, California. With a width of 0.7 miles, 46P/Wirtanen orbits the s un fairly quickly for a comet - once every 5.4 years.

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