![]() The SOHO images revealed that the brightness of NEOWISE increased enormously within a few days. ![]() Before that, from the end of June, it crossed the field of view of the SOHO spacecraft, which actually monitors eruptions on the Sun. ![]() Its orbit brought it as close as 43 million kilometres to the Sun on 3 July. A fourth one has now finally made it: C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), named after the spacecraft that discovered it on 27 March 2020. Several comets had given the astronomers hope since the beginning of this year: C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS), C/2020 F8 (SWAN) and C/2019 U6 (LEMMON), but again none of these three could meet the high expectations - they remained invisible to the naked eye. However, many comets do not survive the approach to the Sun and break before they can offer us a spectacular sight. When they come closer to the Sun on their orbit, they are literally melting - or rather evaporating - and thus the characteristic comet tail forms. With each new discovery astronomers hoped for a new "Great comet", but they were disappointed again and again: Comets are chunks of a few kilometers in size, consisting of debris, water ice and dust, and are usually to be found in the outer regions of our solar system. All comets visible in the meantime were visible either only shortly, at untimely times, from the southern hemisphere or only with binoculars or even telescopes. Hale-Bopp was the last comet in the night sky that was so bright that even inexperienced observers immediately noticed it - 23 years ago. Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) enchants amateur astronomers from all over the world: It has been a long time that a comet visible to the naked eye made its appearance in the evening sky.
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