Look To The Sky Sunday To See The Year's Brightest Comet

This month has been a good one for people wanting to see something spectacular in the night skies. The Geminid meteor shower has been putting on quite the light show and coming up this weekend some people will be able to see the brightest comet of the year. Comet 46P/Wirtanen began to get brighter back in November, but it will be visible to the naked eye on Sunday.The comet will make its closest approach to the Earth in the next 20 years by coming within seven million miles of the Earth. The brightest point for the comet will be December 16, and it will be as bright as a star in the constellation of the Little Dipper's handle says NASA.

Astronomers say that comet 46P is the 10th closest comet to come near the Earth since 1950. Most of the comets that streak by the planet are never bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. The comet is also known as the "Christmas Comet" and graces the night sky once every five years as it orbits the sun.

The closest that the comet comes to the sun happened on December 12. The Wirtanen name in the official designation of the comet comes from the man who first observed it in 1948, Carl Wirtanen. He was at the time a senior observing assistant at the Lick Observatory in California.

To view the comet you will need to be in an area with little light pollution and look up between twilight and sunrise towards the east. If you live in an area with too much light or if it's overcast, the Virtual Telescope Project will be streaming observations of the comet online.