This week a comet that started life in the outer reaches of our solar system will be visible from Earth for the first time, as it approaches our planet's orbit.
The comet will be 66 million miles (106 million km) from Earth at its closest approach.
Another recently-discovered object, called 2016 WF9, has also been taking a scenic tour of our solar system, approaching Jupiter's orbit at its greatest distance from the sun.
On 25 February, 2016 WF9 will approach Earth's orbit at a distance of nearly 32 million miles (51 million kilometres) from our home planet.
However, NASA scientists are not sure whether it is a comet or an asteroid.
"2016 WF9 could have cometary origins," said Deputy Principal Investigator James "Gerbs" Bauer at NASA's JPL.
"This object illustrates that the boundary between asteroids and comets is a blurry one; perhaps over time this object has lost the majority of the volatiles that linger on or just under its surface."
While 2016 WF9 is dark like a comet, it appears to lack the characteristic dust and gas cloud that defines a comet.
NASA said that the object is "not a threat to Earth for the foreseeable future".
Meanwhile, the other object, which has been firmly classified as a comet could be visible this week.
The comet, C/2016 U1 NEOWISE, "has a good chance of becoming visible through a good pair of binoculars, although we can't be sure because a comet's brightness is notoriously unpredictable," said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at JPL.
Those in the northern hemisphere may be able to spot the comet in the southeastern sky shortly before dawn this week.
http://sarafinaj.blogspot.com/2017/01/nasa-says-object-hurtling-towards-earth.html
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