Get your telescopes ready folks , because the night sky is slated to put on quite a show when the bright green glowing remnants of a comet , cheekily nicknamed the “ Incredible Hulk ” , zippo over the Northern Hemisphere on August 8 .
First discovered in September 2017 , PanSTARRS C/2017 S3 is an frozen soundbox fall toward the Sun from the outer Solar System’sOort cloud . It began disintegrating as it engender close to the Sun this year , a cognitive operation that was hastened by two striking blowup last calendar month .
However , the massive dust swarm of its debris – estimated to be at least twice the sizing of Jupiter , the big planet in our Solar System – remains on a trajectorythat will bring it within 113.3 million kilometers ( 70.4 million mile ) from Earth on Tuesday .
According toPopular Mechanics , the so - call in Hulk ’s remarkable chromaticity is the resolution of cyanide and carbon mote within the dust becoming ionize by solar wind . As the comet approach the Sun , this burden is intensified , run to a shining glow ; yet after this calendar week , it will begin fade from our view . The celestial body ’s perihelion – the point in its reach that is closest to the Sun – is expect on August 16 , at which metre whatever remains of C/2017 S3 will be nearer to the Sun than Mercury . This case will be the first known instance of a comet passing through the inner Solar System .
Austrian comet expert Michael Jäger toldSpaceweather.comthat C/2017 S3 was ab initio expected to be seeable with the bare optic when it flew by Earth , but that its subsequent breakdown has importantly dialed down its luminousness .
" The comet is just a leftover of its former self . It is fleet , becoming more diffuse and elongated each meter I look , " he said , observe that C/2017 S3 is now a ninth order of magnitude target – a sorting that means it is still viewable with hobby telescopes and high - powered opera glasses .
gratefully , if you miss the verdant video display tonight due to nebulose sky or the lack of proper equipment , the recurrent summertime spectacular that is the Perseid meteoroid exhibitor return August 11 - 13 . This twelvemonth ’s show is require to beparticularly epic .
[ H / T : The Weather Channel ]
