Say farewell to 2016 in cosmic style by looking up to see the on December 31 🎉
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL)
up Saturday night’s sky, although you may want to pull out binoculars for the second thing.
Stargazers will be able to see Comet 45P on the western horizon, coupled with a crescent moon, on New Year’s Eve, according to NASA.
“We haven’t had a good easy-to-see comet in quite a while,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory spokeswoman Jane Houston Jones said in a earlier this month.
Comet 45P is the first of several binocular and telescopic comets that will be visible in 2017, Jones said.
The comet first appeared on Dec. 15. Its bluish-green head and fan-shaped tail were first visible on Dec. 21. The comet is periodical and comes back to earth every five and a quarter years, according to Jones.
The new year will also start with a nice view of the moon, Venus and Mars on Jan. 1, 2 and 3, . Venus will appear brighter than it has in several years, Jones said. Through a telescope, stargazers can see the planet’s disk 56 percent lit on Jan. 1, decreasing to 40 percent by the end of the month.
Needless to say, the celestial events are best viewed from a dark area, away from city lights.
