When is the next comet passing earth?

Question

and how long till hailys comet comes to

Answer 1

You have heard when Halleys comet is next due, in 2060-61 its period is 76 years and last visited us in 1984.

Comets are frequent visitors to the vicinity of the Sun, and return periodically, but often are faint and not seen without the aid of a telescope or binoculars. Sometimes they are frequent visitors with short periods of only a few years but others are magnificent "great comets" like Hyakutake [1996]and Halle-Bopp [1995] and more recently comet McNair [2007] but often are never seen again because their periods are very long-as much as hundreds of thousands of years.

There is a comet passing quite close to Sun and Earth at the moment, which may be a naked-eye comet this month at magnitude 5.

This is an article in Sky and Telescope which is of interest to comet watchers right now;

"Serious comet chasers — people who track faint comets with telescopes and binoculars — have been aware of Comet C/2007 W1 (Boattini) for quite a while. It was forecast to become quite bright for a telescopic comet, 6th or perhaps even 5th magnitude, making it visible without optical aid to skilled observers at dark sites".

For a while, Boattini exceeded its brightness predictions by more than a magnitude. Now it has settled back to its predicted behavior. If it bumps up again — and that's a very big if! — it could become fairly prominent low in the east before dawn in July..............



Boattini will emerge from the Sun's glow around the beginning of July as an early-morning object, low in the east, for observers in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. What it will look like then is anybody's guess. Most likely, it will be a pleasant though unspectacular little binocular target".

Answer 2

Halley's Comet won't be back until 2060-61. As for the next comet passing Earth, there are new comets being discovered all the time, so it might just depend on when those comets are observed.

Answer 3

The next comet to pass nearest thee sun is, 33P/Daniel. July 20th, then 19P Borrelly, July 22nd. Halley's comet won't be back until 2061. I probably wont see it. I'd be100 years old.