Discovered in April 2020 by amateur astronomer Michael Mattiazo, comet Swan entered our orbit and may become visible to the naked eye. The green-tinged cosmic object with its 10 million-mile-long tail will be closest to our sun by the end of May. The sighting of this ball of ice is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, as it only comes by our solar system every 11,597 years.
Mattiazo, from Australia, didn’t first spot the comment while looking through a telescope. He saw it, however, while analyzing online images posted by the Solar Wind ANisotropies (SWAN) instrument aboard the ESA/NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), ESA reported. According to scientists, the cosmic object’s official name is Comet C/2020 F8, and the possibility of its being visible without special equipment is very high.
