Telescope up! #CometLovejoy is rising.

Comet Lovejoy is coming to within  appx 44 MILLION miles of earth and you can see it in clear, dark skies of the Northern Hemisphere with binoculars or a good sized telescope during the early part of January 2015. It will be closest to the earth on the 7th of January and you should be able to identify it with the naked eye. If you scan the skies below and right of ORION, you should be able to locate it. With an orbital path of ~8000years, it could be a while until you next get the chance. Lovejoy will pass to within 120MILLION miles of the SUN by the end of January, continuing its journey for many thousands of years.

Comet Lovejoy is named after an Australian amateur astronomer - Terry Lovejoy, who discovered it in 2014 using a standard 8inch telescope.

4 BILLION years, 4 Billion miles. Human achievement. Science.

It is mind-blowing. The journey started 10 years ago with the launch of the ESAs 'Rosetta' mission to land a probe on the surface of a comet. A comet that is more than 4 billion years old, known to us as Comet 67P. There has been 25 years of research and planning. Yesterday, 4 BILLION miles (over 6 billion km) later, the probe, named Philae, completed its journey. Landing a probe, the size of a washing machine, on a comet that is travelling at more than 40,000 miles per hour over such unimaginable distances is nothing short of astonishing. A peak in human achievement, a wonderful example of what human beings are capable of when they push the boundaries of science and modern technology. The cutting edge of our understanding of space, the solar system and the universe.