Comet last seen in 1954 now overhead

Four years ago astronomers who knew what they were looking for spotted the Pons-Brooks comet hurtling back towards the sun and Earth after a 67-year journey across the solar system to beyond the orbit of Neptune. It has spent those four years getting closer and is now visible to amateurs with long lenses or binoculars, leaving a tail millions of miles long across the night sky in varying shades of blue and green. When it reaches perihelion next month – the closest point to the sun in its orbit – it will be travelling at roughly 170,000 kilometres an hour, and would be hundreds of times brighter than it is now thanks to the sun's heat, but for the sun's light, which outshines everything near it. So instead, good times to view it from Earth's northern hemisphere will be 31 March, when it will be close to a bright but much more distant star called Hamal; and, from the US, on 8 April, when a total eclipse of the sun may boost its visibility. It’s about the size of Mt Everest. Next approach: August 2095.