
The orbit of the comet of 1680, fit to a parabola, as shown in Isaac Newton’s Principia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A comet discovered on September 21, 2012 by two Russian astronomers hasn’t made the major news outlets yet but it will soon enough. Comet ISON is on its way to bring us a sky show that could be the one of the most memorable since 1680. Gradually increasing in brightness, it will become visible to users with small telescopes or binoculars by August 2013 and visible to the naked eye by late October/early November. It will stay visible in the sky until January 2014 and may actually be brighter then the moon itself. It is not on a trajectory with earth but will pass with 1 degree of the sun. More to come on this later.