Comet Lulin Makes Nearest, Single Visit

Discovered two years ago by a Chinese teenager, now a nineteen-year-old student of meteorology, the comet takes its name from the Taiwanese observatory where it was first photographed. Yesterday (24/2/09) was the closest Lulin came to our own planet, at a distance of some 38 million miles - which is about the distance between the Earth and Mars.

Even after making an 18 trillion mile journey from the backyard of our solar system, Lulin's apparently inexhaustible green tail, produced by the gasses cyanogen and carbon, will appear to be in front of the comet rather than behind it. This is because, as a temporary feature of the inner solar system, the green beauty with its ion tail, travels in a retrograde direction, shifting its mysterious ices, dust and green wavelengths in the opposite direction to rest of us (planets and other objects in our solar system tend to move in a counter-clockwise direction).

If you point your telescope or binoculars in the general direction of Saturn in the constellation of Leo, you might just be awed by this once-in –lifetime marvel.

If you inhabit the northern latitudes of Europe and the US, late evenings high in the south-east is the appropriate direction for setting your sights.

By Bill Drennan