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<ul class="summary-list"><li><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-heading-earth-bright-outshine-stars-scientists-c-2023-a32023-3">Comet A3, or Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS</a>, is visible in the Northern Hemisphere this October.</li><li>The comet takes 80,000 years to orbit the sun, so Neanderthals were among the last people to see it.</li></ul><p>A rare comet is gleaming in our skies this October, it's your only chance to ever see it, and it might be <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/saw-northern-lights-surprising-photos-misleading-2024-5">visible to<strong> </strong>the naked eye</a>.</p><p>Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, or Comet A3, is a dusty ball of ice from the Oort Cloud that takes about 80,000 years to orbit the sun. That means some of the last people to see it were <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/last-neanderthal-thorin-unique-dna-help-explain-species-extinction-2024-9">Neanderthals</a>.</p><p>This is the best opportunity in years, and possibly in a decade, to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/green-comet-ztf-viewing-where-when-how-see-2023-1">see a bright comet in the sky</a>. Experts are hopeful that Comet A3 will be "highly memorable" and "a real crowd pleaser," according to Dan Bartlett, an astrophotographer who tracks comets.</p><p>But you <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tried-see-green-comet-fail-2023-2">need to be prepared</a>.</p><p>"It's just hard to make the time to be in the right place, to have the right experience," Teddy Kareta, a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomer-animations-reveal-solar-system-physics-2021-10">planetary scientist</a> who specializes in comets at the Lowell Observatory, told Business Insider.</p><p>When Kareta has talked to people who have <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/devil-comet-visible-during-total-solar-eclipse-how-see-2024-4">seen a truly great comet</a>, though, "there's just nothing like it," he said.</p><p>Here's everything you should know to be in the right place at the right time and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-when-to-see-green-comet-mars-together-night-sky-2023-2">spot the comet</a>.</p><h2 id="11d1e1ae-eb70-4e43-aa3a-ab5cb2a93f24">How bright is Comet A3?</h2><p id="11d1e1ae-eb70-4e43-aa3a-ab5cb2a93f24">Nobody is certain about how bright this comet will be, but Kareta says it has the potential to be the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-see-green-comet-nishimura-2023-9">brightest comet</a> in a decade.</p><p id="11d1e1ae-eb70-4e43-aa3a-ab5cb2a93f24">The last big, bold comet was <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-surprise-appearance-earth-unprepared-for-asteroids-2020-7">NEOWISE in 2020</a>. It was visible to the naked eye and produced stunning photos like this:</p><div type="image" title="comet neowise belarus" height="1911" width="3000" msid="113849897" hostid="261" sizebytes="285386"></div><p id="11d1e1ae-eb70-4e43-aa3a-ab5cb2a93f24">Astronomers are divided about whether Comet A3 will shine as <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-passing-close-to-earth-dazzling-photos-videos-2020-7">bright as Comet NEOWISE</a>.</p><p id="11d1e1ae-eb70-4e43-aa3a-ab5cb2a93f24">In recent weeks, A3 has at times been brighter than predicted and at other times matched predictions, according to the BBC's <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/beginners-guide-comet-c-2023-a3">Sky at Night Magazine</a> and Robert Massey, the deputy executive director of the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_mGtE7282Q&amp;ab_channel=RoyalAstronomicalSociety">Royal Astronomical Society</a>.</p><p id="11d1e1ae-eb70-4e43-aa3a-ab5cb2a93f24">From a dark-sky vantage point at Mono Lake, California — tucked into the Sierra Nevadas — Bartlett says he can see the comet with binoculars already.</p><p>But comets can change quickly, in a matter of hours. That's because their brightness depends on what type and amount of gas or dust they're emitting, and that can change on a dime.</p><p>For example, in 2007 Comet Holmes suddenly flared up and became 500,000 times brighter in just two days because a pocket of gas inside it had breached its surface, according to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.space.com/20347-comet-brightness-predictions-difficult.html">Space.com</a>.</p><p>"Sometimes people will say that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-everest-sky-how-to-see-it-12p-pons-brooks-2024-3">predicting comets</a> is kind of like playing the lottery," Kareta said.</p><h2 id="f9be457b-ee58-4abd-b650-c3903d50bfb8">When and where to see Comet A3</h2><p id="f9be457b-ee58-4abd-b650-c3903d50bfb8">Weather permitting,<strong> </strong>everyone in the Northern Hemisphere should be able to see Comet A3 in October.</p><p id="f9be457b-ee58-4abd-b650-c3903d50bfb8">There are two windows to catch it, one from now through October 2 and another from October 12 to 30, according to a press release from Massey.</p><p id="f9be457b-ee58-4abd-b650-c3903d50bfb8">During the first window, the comet appears above the eastern horizon during a 15-minute window that begins one hour before sunrise, according to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.space.com/comet-tsuchinshan-atlas-brightening-perihelion-how-to-see">Space.com</a>.</p><p id="f9be457b-ee58-4abd-b650-c3903d50bfb8">However, the best opportunity to see the comet, when it's <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.astronomy.com/observing/comet-tsuchinshan-atlas-may-soon-become-bright/">closest to Earth</a>, is during the second window. After sunset, it will shine in the west, just to the left of the Big Dipper's handle, making for a more schedule-friendly viewing time.</p><h2 id="f584376a-e5c8-4cf2-9b77-2d6434dabfc3">Where to go and what to bring</h2><p>For the best viewing, you should drive far from the city and gaze into a very dark sky. Check Business Insider's list of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/darkest-skies-by-state-watch-space-events-stargazing">dark-sky spots in each state</a>.</p><div type="image" title="night sky with meteors shooting stars bright white streaks and one extra bright fireball above a rocky hillside of evergreen trees" height="681" width="1024" msid="113849895" hostid="261" sizebytes="82586"></div><p>If that's not an option, though, find a relatively dark spot outside the worst of the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-dark-skies-look-like-how-many-more-stars-than-cities-suburbs">city lights</a> — maybe on a hill or just outside the city — where you can face away from any major light sources to look toward Comet A3.</p><p>"Even if you live in an area with lots and lots of street lights, lots of smog, lots of smoke, lots of whatever, you still ought to go for it," Kareta said.</p><p>Check the weather before you go. If it will be cloudy all night, for example, you may want to plan for another evening. Bring warm layers and a chair or blanket to lay back on. Without support, you might be surprised how quickly your neck gets tired of craning back to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-see-exploding-star-nova-nasa-says-expect-soon-2024-3">look at the stars</a>.</p><p>If you have binoculars or a telescope, bring them. There's no guarantee of naked-eye visibility. In some cities, you can check out binoculars or a telescope from your local library.</p><p>Especially if you're a beginner, you may want to download a skywatching app like Sky Safari ($4.99 in the App Store) or pull up a website like Stellarium (free) on your phone. Once you're on the ground, that will help you pinpoint where the comet is in the sky.</p><h2 id="b4523206-0dfd-4a5e-acaf-d6a8ee9de2a4">How to look for the comet</h2><p id="b4523206-0dfd-4a5e-acaf-d6a8ee9de2a4">Finding a comet in the sky is harder than you might think. You'll need to know a few tips and techniques.</p><p id="b4523206-0dfd-4a5e-acaf-d6a8ee9de2a4">Once you reach your comet-watching spot, it can help to open your skywatching app to identify exactly where the comet is in the sky, near a constellation you recognize — like the Big Dipper.</p><p>Then give your eyes at least 30 minutes to adjust to the dark. Try not to look at your phone. Even a small burst of blue light is enough to reset your eyes.</p><p>If the comet doesn't immediately jump out to you, try scanning around the area. Your peripheral vision is more sensitive to faint objects, so you might spot it in the corner of your eye.</p><p><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/green-comet-ztf-what-look-like-see-photos-2023-1">You're looking for</a> a smudge, slightly bigger than a star. It won't twinkle like the stars do, and it will look a bit blurrier, with less defined borders. It might appear elongated because of the comet's tail, which is dust and gas flowing off its icy body.</p><p>"If you look at it and it looks like it's behaving differently than some of the stars nearby, that's a really good sign that you've picked up on the right thing," Kareta said.</p><p>If you're still not sure, try taking a long-exposure photo with your phone. This is built into most phone cameras' nighttime settings. (Hint: Turn your brightness down to protect your eyes.)</p><p>The long exposure will provide a clearer image of the comet than your eyes can.</p><p id="b4523206-0dfd-4a5e-acaf-d6a8ee9de2a4">If you can't find Comet A3 at all, Kareta recommends trying again a few days later.</p><p>"Go one night out, and then take a night off, and go back out. You'll know better how to time it, how to get ready," he said.</p><h2 id="4dc3ee16-f7a1-4a12-9138-5ef798a3a762">How to photograph the comet</h2><p id="b4523206-0dfd-4a5e-acaf-d6a8ee9de2a4">If your phone isn't picking up the comet, a DSLR camera might do the trick. Massey recommends taking a series of exposures.</p><p id="b4523206-0dfd-4a5e-acaf-d6a8ee9de2a4">You can also hold your phone camera up to the lens of your binoculars or telescope to take a picture through it. That method can be tricky, so it helps to practice a bit in advance.</p><p id="b4523206-0dfd-4a5e-acaf-d6a8ee9de2a4">After this, Comet A3 won't return for tens of thousands of years. "See it now or lose your chance," Kareta said.</p>

How to see Comet A3, which could be the best comet in a decade. Neanderthals walked the Earth last time it flew by.

IN PICS: Comet NEOWISE spotted blazing from the Stonehenge to the Swiss Alps, in skies all over the world

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="7612156" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="starlink">Starlink</keyword> <keyword id="41530" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="satellites">satellites</keyword> photobombed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-passing-close-to-earth-dazzling-photos-videos-2020-7">Comet Neowise</a> in a striking photo. The juxtaposition highlights astronomers' concerns about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-zero-impact-astronomy-2020-3">Elon Musk</a>'s internet project.</li><li>The photo is a composite of 17 images taken over 30 seconds, so it doesn't show what you would see with the naked eye.</li><li>Still, plenty of <keyword id="6391802" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="astronomy">astronomy</keyword> research relies on long-exposure images, and Starlink's streaks of light could <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-asks-for-meeting-with-eso-over-starlink-satellites-2020-3">ruin scientists' work</a>.</li></ul><p><keyword id="6355315" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="elon-musk">Elon Musk</keyword>'s growing constellation of internet satellites has been sending streaks of bright light across night skies around the world. Even the biggest comet to pass Earth in 25 years wasn't spared. </p><p>A striking photo showing <keyword id="9531572" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="comet-neowise">Comet Neowise</keyword> behind those streaks of light shows how easily the satellites can upstage observations of distant objects in space.</p><p><div type="image" title="comet neowise starlink" height="2099" width="1757" msid="77247970" hostid="261"></div></p><p>The satellite project, called Starlink, is Musk's plan to blanket Earth in high-speed satellite internet. The effort has drawn criticism from professional and amateur astronomers, however, because the bright satellites can mar the skies and disrupt telescope observations.</p><p>That's what happened to the astrophotographer <a href="http://www.elcielodecanarias.com/">Daniel López</a> on July 21, when he was shooting Comet Neowise before it flies out of view for another 6,800 years. He <a href="https://www.facebook.com/elcielodecanarias.es/photos/a.224658390885198/4415045628513099">shared</a> the resulting image on the Facebook page of his photography company, El Cielo de Canarias, saying it was a shame to see the satellites make such a spectacle.</p><p>López's photo is a composite of 17 images taken in the span of 30 seconds. Each image was long exposure, meaning it captured the comet over several seconds.</p><p>The astronomer Julien Girard shared the picture on <a href="https://twitter.com/djulik/status/1286053695956881409">Twitter</a>, saying the satellites had "completely photobombed" the comet.</p><p>"Two of my pictures the other night were also bombed by a Starlink," Girard said.</p><p>López also shared the time-lapse video behind the picture. He added that traces of the satellites were visible in 20 of his images.</p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/elcielodecanarias.es/posts/4424824440868551">Post</a> by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/">El Cielo de Canarias</a>.<p>Because it's a composite time-lapse photo, the image doesn't show what you would see with the naked eye. But it illustrates why many astronomers worry about the threat that <keyword id="518734" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="satellite-constellations">satellite constellations</keyword> like Starlink pose to ground-based astronomy.</p><h2>Too many satellites could mess with astronomy on Earth</h2><p>Long-exposure images are a crucial part of studying distant objects in the night sky. Telescopes on Earth watch celestial targets for hours, slowly building up a detailed image that offers astronomers rich data.</p><p>But one poorly timed Starlink satellite can ruin that kind of research by creating a long streak across the image and blocking the objects that astronomers want to study.</p><p><div type="image" title="starlink train" height="1013" width="1351" msid="77247974" hostid="261"></div></p><p>"In that couple of seconds, a whole 10- or 15-minute exposure is ruined," the astronomer Jonathan McDowell told Business Insider in June.</p><p><keyword id="6360701" type="DEFINITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="spacex">SpaceX</keyword> is sharing Starlink's orbital-path data with astronomers so that they can plan their telescope observations around the satellites' movements. Briefly shutting off the camera as the satellite passes overhead can save a long-exposure image.</p><p>But Musk's ambitions could make it nearly impossible to avoid the fast-moving satellites. SpaceX has sought government permission to put <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-internet-satellites-itc-filing-30000-additional-42000-total-2019-10">a total of 42,000 satellites into orbit</a> to form a "megaconstellation" around Earth. </p><p>"If they're coming over all the time, then knowing when they're coming over isn't helpful," McDowell said. Even now, he added, sometimes astronomers can't avoid the photobombers.</p><p><div type="image" title="starlink satellites flat packed stack payload falcon 9 rocket spacex twitter D7THAABVUAATipL" height="675" width="900" msid="77247977" hostid="261"></div></p><p>SpaceX isn't the only company building a massive fleet of satellites. Companies like OneWeb and Amazon have similar ambitions.</p><p>"The sky will not be what it has been for millions of years. Thousands of dots will appear and disappear in the night sky," López told <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/spacex-satellites-ruin-perfectly-good-view-of-comet-neo-1844483615?fbclid=IwAR1Io31r8rgt4LJumHuiNb7dID2aFEubFURyETfzjgwiUWiOHnCcYy5C9o0">Gizmodo</a>. "I personally think that if no action is taken, it will be the end of astronomy as we know it from the surface of the Earth."</p><p>Professional astronomers have given similarly dire warnings. </p><p>"The night sky is for everybody. It has been scrutinized and used for millennia," Girard <a href="https://twitter.com/djulik/status/1286695694141726721">said</a>. "We should cherish it and protect it just like our Earth."</p>

Elon Musk's Starlink satellites photobombed Comet Neowise in a photographer's striking image

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A spectacular photo shows <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-see-comet-neowise-when-where-to-look-2020-7">Comet Neowise</a> hanging amid the <keyword id="270371" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Aurora-Borealis">aurora borealis</keyword>, with a mysterious atmospheric phenomenon called <keyword id="26233" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="steve">STEVE</keyword> and a <keyword id="1565035" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="meteor">meteor</keyword> streaking overhead.</li><li>Farmer Donna Lach snapped the action-packed shot on Tuesday while she was photographing the comet.</li><li>After August, <keyword id="9531572" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="comet-neowise">Comet Neowise</keyword> won't be visible on Earth again for another 6,800 years. </li></ul><p>Comet Neowise — a glowing ball of <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> ice with two colorful tails — has starred in countless photos as it streaks through the skies across the Northern Hemisphere this week. On Tuesday, three cosmic co-stars joined it, making for an astonishing spectacle.</p><p>The image above shows a split-second meteor streaking across the sky, the green <keyword id="337466" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Aurora">aurora</keyword> shimmering over Comet Neowise, and purple ribbons dancing in a mysterious atmospheric phenomenon called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-aurora-found-by-amateur-astronomers-farther-south-2018-3">Strong Thermal Emissions Velocity Enhancement (STEVE)</a>.</p><p>The shot was one of nearly 600 that photographer and farmer <a href="https://twitter.com/lachdonna?lang=en">Donna Lach</a> snapped on Tuesday night near her farm in Manitoba, Canada. Lach volunteers for a citizen <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> project called Aurorasaurus, funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, which first discovered STEVE in 2016.</p><p><div type="image" title="steve neowise comet meteor aurora skitch 2" height="1600" width="2400" msid="77028467" hostid="261"></div></p><p>The aurora appears when charged particles from the sun interact with oxygen and nitrogen in Earth's atmosphere, but STEVE's origins are still a mystery.</p><p>From Lach's vantage point, both sets of colorful lights lined up perfectly with the fleeting appearance of a meteor — a space rock vaporizing in Earth's atmosphere — all while Comet Neowise hung bright near the horizon.</p><p>The comet is expected to get closest to our planet on July 23, approaching within about 64 million miles. But the next few nights — through Sunday — may provide the best opportunity to spot it in the sky. After it rockets away again, Neowise won't return to the inner solar system for 6,768 years.</p><p>Lach said she initially set out to capture the comet against the aurora borealis.</p><p>"The reports had been forecasting aurora for a couple of days so I was going to be ready to catch both," she told Business Insider. She wasn't expecting STEVE or the meteor.</p><p>She applied "a good layer of DEET," she said,  and then "stood there swatting mosquitoes forever until it finally got dark."</p><p>By 11:30 p.m., the comet was high above the horizon and the aurora was glittering across half the sky. An hour and a half later, the vertical stripes of STEVE appeared — far from the comet, but not too far for her camera's wide-angle lens. </p><p>"I was thrilled to see I could catch the span from STEVE to Neowise," Lach said. "I couldn't believe it when I caught the long meteor in one frame. I just stood smiling and saying 'wow' to myself and the critters in the ditch."</p><p>Lach added that the glittering display gave her "an epic night that I will never forget."</p>

Comet Neowise, a meteor, and a mysterious aurora-like phenomenon called STEVE all share the night sky in one incredible photo

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA <keyword id="73998" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="astronauts">astronauts</keyword> living aboard the <keyword id="6382020" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="international-space-station">International Space Station</keyword> recently witnessed <a href="https://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu/news/neowise20200708/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Comet Neowise</a> rising above the limb of Earth.</li><li>The astronauts photographed what they saw July 5 in a time-lapse series of photographs.</li><li>A UK graphic artist then downloaded all of the images, edited them into a real-time 4K movie, and released the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh1_wHdUx3Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">seven-minute video</a> on YouTube.</li><li><keyword id="9531572" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="comet-neowise">Comet Neowise</keyword> is on its way out of the solar system and won't return for about 6,800 years, but it will be highly visible about 80 minutes after sunset from Tuesday to Sunday.</li></ul><p>In the darkness of orbital night on July 5, a NASA astronaut floated up to a window on the International <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">Space</keyword> Station, gazed toward the limb of Earth, and patiently waited for a cosmic spectacle.</p><p>As the space station careened over the Middle East, the recently discovered <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-streaking-past-earth-providing-spectacular-show-2020-7">Comet Neowise</a> and its twin glowing tails rose above the predawn horizon. Then — almost as quickly as the dust-and-gas-sputtering space rock appeared — it faded into the blinding glare of the sun.</p><p>"Right before the sun came up, that comet became visible during that short period of time when it was still close to the sun, but the sun was still hidden by the Earth," the NASA astronaut <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronauts-doug-hurley-bob-behnken-biography-spacex-demo2-2020-5">Bob Behnken</a>, who <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-launches-historic-rocket-mission-nasa-astronauts-demo-2-2020-5">recently launched</a> to the ISS aboard SpaceX's new Crew Dragon spaceship, told The New York Times' <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/podcasts/the-daily/coronavirus-data-united-states.html?showTranscript=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"The Daily" podcast</a> from orbit on July 7. "It was just an awesome sight to be able to see."</p><p>Fortunately for us all, we don't have to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-nasa-astronaut-mission-biggest-concern-reentry-danger-2020-5">risk our lives</a> rocketing to space to see such a scene, or even imagine it: Behnken and his colleagues recorded hundreds of photographs, which the UK-based graphic artist <a href="https://twitter.com/_TheSeaning/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Seán Doran</a> (who regularly processes space-agency imagery) downloaded from a <a href="https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA image archive</a> and then edited into a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh1_wHdUx3Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">breathtaking time-lapse movie</a>.</p><p>"Grab a cold beverage, turn off the lights, get undressed, get comfortable and pop this on the big TV," Doran <a href="https://twitter.com/_TheSeaning/status/1281360453998972932" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a> Thursday with a short cut of the video, adding: "Consume whilst drinking."</p><p>Though Doran initially shared a version of the video sped up four times, he later uploaded an ultra-high-definition 4K video to his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC28l88GMXXqZYfY0Ru9h50w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">YouTube channel</a> that shows the sequence in real time.</p><p>The sequence consists of 550 long-exposure photos taken over seven minutes, Doran told Business Insider in an email. Normally, that'd provide just 18 seconds of video, so he interpolated the pictures to fill in frames, smooth out the sequence, and create a seamless playback experience.</p><p>This result gives viewers of the film (below) a sense of what it's like to be aboard the space station while flying 250 miles above Earth at a speed of 17,500 mph and see a comet rise.</p><h2>Look now: Comet Neowise won't be back for millennia</h2><p>Scientists operating a NASA telescope called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, discovered the comet March 27. Formally known as C/2020 F3, the comet is named Comet Neowise after the telescope's new mission to find <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-detection-mission-neocam-nasa-funding-astronaut-support-2018-11">potentially threatening near-Earth objects</a>, or NEOs.</p><p>On July 3, Comet Neowise swung by the sun about 10 million miles closer than Mercury's orbit. Along the way, the 3-mile (5 kilometer) ice ball heated up enough to spray out two tails, one made of gas and the other dust, that stretch millions of miles into space.</p><p>The comet is expected to make its closest approach to Earth on July 23, when it's about 64 million miles away, according to <a href="https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?CGISESSID=96428ae5803dd7a284fe19c554ebd07a#results" target="_blank" rel="noopener">calculations by NASA JPL</a>. Astronomers expect it to be visible to the naked eye on a dark night through early August.</p><p><div type="image" title="comet neowise horizon bird power lines GettyImages 1226598506" height="1709" width="2279" msid="76954319" hostid="261"></div></p><p>But Comet Neowise isn't sticking around, nor will it make a return in our lifetimes: The object is zooming toward the outer fringes of our solar system, and it won't return to the inner solar system for about 6,768 years.</p><p>To see the comet yourself, wake up before dawn and look toward the sky close to the horizon. From this Tuesday to Sunday, though, <a href="https://www.space.com/comet-neowise-visibility-july-2020.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Space.com reports</a>, the comet will have its best "prime time" viewing hours in the evening about 80 minutes after sunset.</p><p>On Monday, several amateur astronomers <a href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=3085078141529497&amp;id=2020963364943734373" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> the comet as <a href="https://twitter.com/baschattanooga/status/1282691465798463489" target="_blank" rel="noopener">possibly</a> fragmenting, or breaking up, which is not unusual for a rock that's held together by frozen gasses, dust, and grit. Researchers contacted by Business Insider debunked that idea, however, saying telescope mount or photography mistakes led to what looks like (but is not) a fragmenting comet.</p><p>"I have seen a picture taken a few hours ago ... and the comet looks healthy," <a href="https://yeqzids.github.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Quanzhi Ye</a>, an astronomer at the University of Maryland, told Business Insider in an email Monday. "So no, no clear evidence that the comet is fragmenting, as far as I know."</p><p><em>This story has been updated with new information.</em></p>

A jaw-dropping 4K video shows Comet Neowise rising above planet Earth from the view of an astronaut in space

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="158876" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="comet">Comet</keyword> Neowise only appears every 6,800 years.</li><li>It has been visible in the Northern Hemisphere from July 15 to July 23.</li><li>John Nicotera and Erica Pendrak got <keyword id="40467" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="engaged">engaged</keyword> during the <keyword id="54934" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="cosmic">cosmic</keyword> event, and their friend Tim Leach captured the <keyword id="6374727" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="proposal">proposal</keyword> in a photograph.</li><li>"He froze the greatest moment of my life so far," Nicotera told Insider. </li></ul><p>A proposal is a memorable event for anyone. But for one couple, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.</p><p>John Nicotera and Erica Pendrak got engaged under <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-passing-close-to-earth-dazzling-photos-videos-2020-7">Comet Neowise</a>, an extremely rare cosmic event. </p><h2>Nicotera and Pendrak have been together for two years</h2><p>Both Pendrak, 33, and Nicotera, 26, are teachers, with Pendrak teaching first grade and Nicotera teaching physical education. </p><p>The couple connected via Instagram, and they've been together ever since.</p><p>Nicotera told Insider he started thinking about proposing around Christmas 2019, but the time the two spent together in quarantine during the pandemic made him think more seriously about popping the question.</p><p><div type="image" title="erica and john" height="922" width="1229" msid="77137351" hostid="261"></div></p><p>"We've lived together for over a year and a half," Nicotera said. "But just being stuck at home every hour can take a toll on a person, and we had not a single issue."</p><p>"I feel like the honeymoon phase of the relationship might've faded away and that was a big test," he added. "We both figured out how to deal with each other's problems, you know?"</p><p>Pendrak added that they just complement each other. "I <keyword id="7557" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Love">love</keyword> that I'm able to share genuine, serious, loving moments with John just as much as I can share silly moments," she said. </p><p>Nicotera originally planned to propose at Crater Lake in Oregon, but traveling wasn't possible, leaving him unsure of how to proceed.</p><h2>Proposal inspiration struck when Nicotera heard about Comet Neowise</h2><p>Nicotera describes himself as a space junkie, and he follows what's happening with SpaceX and NASA very closely. </p><p>He recently learned of the rare comet, called Neowise, which only appears every 6,800 years, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/how-to-see-comet-neowise">according to NASA</a>. The comet was visible in the Northern Hemisphere from July 15 through July 23.</p><p>The comet seemed like the perfect occasion to propose. Nicotera made plans for himself and Pendrak to go to his family's camp in Old Forge, New York, so they could watch the celestial event and he could pop the question.</p><p>Fate seemed to step in when Nicotera's good friend <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tleach18/">Tim Leach</a>, a photographer, reached out to see if the couple would want to take photos under the comet.</p><p>Leach had been taking photos of the comet for days, so he knew how to capture striking images. It required a long exposure, forcing anyone posing to stand still for several seconds after each picture was taken to ensure the comet was visible in the sky. </p><p>On July 18, Nicotera and Pendrak met up with Leach and his girlfriend to watch the comet, when the two men would work together to pull off the proposal. </p><h2>They posed for a few photos together before Nicotera popped the question, so Pendrak didn't suspect anything</h2><p>After he and Pendrak had posed for a couple of pictures, Nicotera told Leach he was going to propose. He said he was nervous ahead of the moment.</p><p>But all of his nerves melted away as he looked at Pendrak before he got down on one knee.</p><p>Because they had to stay still under the exposure to capture the photos, Nicotera and Pendrak had a lot of meaningful eye contact during the comet.</p><p>"I just remember the amount of happiness I had going through me," he said. "All the nerves were gone at that point. I was just like, 'I'm massively in love with this girl. I'm going to do it.'"</p><p><div type="image" title="comet proposal" height="1503" width="1369" msid="77137353" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Pendrak said she immediately started crying when Nicotera popped the question, as the proposal was a total surprise to her. She and Nicotera had discussed their future together, but she didn't realize he had concrete plans to propose.</p><p>The couple told Insider they had to wait to hug for several seconds after he proposed because of the long exposure, which was difficult. </p><p>But they celebrated together once they could move, and Leach took more photos to ensure they would have proof of the moment forever.</p><h2>The couple said they're grateful Leach was able to document the proposal</h2><p>"I'm just really happy Tim was able to be there and capture that moment for us," Nicotera said.</p><p>"He froze the greatest moment of my life so far," he added. "It's not just a memory. I can relive it as long as that photo lasts, and we are always going to have that."</p><p><div type="image" title="comet proposal" height="1027" width="1369" msid="77137355" hostid="261"></div></p><p>The proposal also ended up going viral online, as Nicotera <a href="https://twitter.com/YohnnyNic/status/1284977562372931585">tweeted about the experience</a> and tagged astronaut Garrett Reisman, who later retweeted the image and told the couple congratulations. </p><p>Nicotera is a big fan of Reisman, and he often listens to him on podcasts. The recognition was like the cherry on top of their proposal experience.</p><p>"Our story is being spread around the country and the world," Pendrak said. "That's kind of awesome to see and to have some good news."</p><p>The couple hasn't set a wedding date yet, but they're hoping to get married sometime next summer.</p><p>You can follow Leach on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tleach18/">Instagram</a> and Nicotera on <a href="https://twitter.com/YohnnyNic">Twitter</a>.</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/couple-got-engaged-during-a-black-lives-matter-protest-2020-6">A man surprised his girlfriend by proposing at a Black Lives Matter protest: 'Black lives matter, and Black love matters'</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/cornfield-proposal-in-germany-captured-on-google-maps-2020-2">A German farmer's elaborate marriage proposal was captured on Google Maps</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/man-proposed-by-editing-himself-into-sleeping-beauty-video-2020-1">A man proposed to his girlfriend during a screening of 'Sleeping Beauty' by editing himself into her favorite Disney movie</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/couple-engaged-on-southwest-plane-after-they-met-on-airline-2019-11">A man proposed to his girlfriend on a plane a year after they met in the air</a></li></ul>

A couple got engaged under a rare comet that is only visible every 6,800 years

<ul><li>Elon Musk’s space company <keyword id="6360701" type="DEFINITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="spacex">SpaceX</keyword> is gearing up to launch another 60 <keyword id="10016357" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="starlink-internet-satellites">Starlink internet satellites</keyword> tonight. <br /></li><li>The Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 7:52 pm Indian Standard Time (IST).<br /></li><li>Here’s how you watch the SpaceX launch live.<br /></li></ul>The next big batch of Starlink satellites will take to the skies tonight. The 60 new satellites will join SpaceX’s growing mega constellation to cover the world in a blanket high-speed internet.<br /><br />Elon Musk’s space exploration company has already launched 650 satellites, 175 of which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/spacex-broke-a-record-by-launching-180-satellites-in-1-month-accelerating-elon-musks-project-to-blanket-earth-in-high-speed-internet/articleshow/77915600.cms">went up in August alone</a>. <br /><br />Musk had previously suggested that the company would launch Starlink satellites every two weeks throughout the year to hit 1,400 by the end of 2020, but the plan is progressing slower than that so far.<br /><br />The SpaceX workhorse Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to take off from Pad 39A at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 7:52 pm Indian Standard Time (IST).<br /><br /><strong>How to watch the SpaceX launch <br /></strong>Once the rocket takes off, the Starlink satellites will be deployed within around 1 hour and 1 minute. You can catch the action live on YouTube stream embedded below or head on over to the <a href="https://www.spacex.com/launches/index.html">SpaceX official channel</a>.<br /><br /><div type="javascript" title="Custom" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[]]></cdata></div><br /><strong>Sun visors may not be enough to address Starlink's concerns.<br /></strong>In August, SpaceX started launching its satellites equipped with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/spacex-just-launched-57-new-starlink-satellites-with-sun-visors-to-make-them-less-bright-a-scientist-says-that-wont-stop-them-from-interfering-with-astronomy-/articleshow/77414807.cms">sun visors to make them less bright</a>. The move came after several experts and scientists pointed out that the sheer number of satellites would block out the rest of the space and interfere with astronomical measurements.<br /><br />An example recently came to light where the train of Starlink satellite was seen photobombing an image of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/elon-musks-starlink-satellites-photobombed-comet-neowise-in-a-photographers-striking-image/articleshow/77248143.cms">Comet Neowise.</a><br /><br />“The visors will probably make the satellites less bright, but it won’t stop them from interfering with astronomy,” astronomer <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/spacex-just-launched-57-new-starlink-satellites-with-sun-visors-to-make-them-less-bright-a-scientist-says-that-wont-stop-them-from-interfering-with-astronomy-/articleshow/77414807.cms">Jonathan McDowell told Business Insider</a> in June.<br /><br /><strong>SpaceX Starlink high-speed internet<br /></strong>SpaceX has already begun private beta testing the internet service earlier this year. According to the company, the Starlink satellite internet can download 100 megabits per second with ‘<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/spacex-says-its-starlink-satellite-internet-can-download-100-megabits-per-second-and-space-lasers-transfer-data-between-satellites/articleshow/77922089.cms?utm_source=TOInewHP_TILwidget&amp;utm_medium=ABtest&amp;utm_campaign=TOInewHP">space lasers</a>’ to transfer data between satellites.<br /><br />"That means our latency is low enough to play the fastest online video games, and our download speeds are fast enough to stream multiple HD movies at once and still have bandwidth to spare,” said SpaceX senior certification engineer Kate Tice during the announcement.<br /><br />After launching another 500 or so satellites, the company plans to boot up the system fully.<br /><br />“For the system to be economically viable, it’s really on the order of 1,000 satellites,” Musk said in 2019. Overall, SpaceX is currently waiting on the government to approve its plan to put a total of 42,000 satellites into orbit around the planet to create its mega constellation. <br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/news/rbi-postpones-monetary-policy-meeting-new-dates-to-be-announced-soon/articleshow/78361698.cms">RBI postpones Monetary Policy meeting as the hunt for three new MPC members continues</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/sbi-warns-customers-to-beware-of-whatsapp-calls-and-scam-messages/articleshow/78361332.cms">SBI warns customers to beware of WhatsApp calls and scam messages</a><br /><br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/banks-stocks-hdfc-icici-sbi-kotak-mahindra-indusind-react-to-sc-verdict-on-moratorium/articleshow/78358550.cms"><strong>Bank stocks gain as Supreme Court defers verdict on loan moratorium case to October 5</strong></a><br /><br />

Elon Musk's SpaceX will launch another 60 Starlink internet satellites into Earth’s orbit tonight

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6360701" type="DEFINITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="spacex">SpaceX</keyword> on May 30 launched <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> <keyword id="73998" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="astronauts">astronauts</keyword> Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to orbit — the private company's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-launches-historic-rocket-mission-nasa-astronauts-demo-2-2020-5">first flight of humans</a>.</li><li>Behnken and Hurley rode SpaceX's new <keyword id="3150656" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="crew-dragon">Crew Dragon</keyword> spaceship, developed with NASA's help, to the <keyword id="6382020" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="international-space-station">International Space Station</keyword> (ISS).</li><li>The crew is now wrapping up its test mission and plans to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-crew-dragon-return-astronauts-space-station-august-2-2020-7">return to Earth</a> in early August.</li><li>Before Behnken and Hurley come, though, NASA and SpaceX will inspect Crew Dragon's heat shield, which protects the spaceship from 3,500-degree-Fahrenheit temperatures during atmospheric reentry.</li><li>In the rare event that Crew Dragon's shield has been damaged by micrometeoroids or orbital debris, the two men can stay aboard the ISS until another spaceship arrives to take them home.</li></ul><p>After living and working in space for more than two months, NASA astronauts <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronauts-doug-hurley-bob-behnken-biography-spacex-demo2-2020-5">Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken</a> are due back to planet Earth on August 2.</p><p>Before they can safely return, the astronauts' <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-nasa-astronauts-spacex-new-spaceship-zero-gravity-2020-6">Crew Dragon spaceship</a> — designed, built, and launched by SpaceX — must pass a crucial inspection. </p><p>SpaceX launched Behnken and Hurley with a Falcon 9 rocket on May 30 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, and their flight is the aerospace company's first with humans on board. Crew Dragon's development, the astronauts' current experimental mission, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-nasa-astronaut-mission-launch-100000-workers-demo2-2020-6">called Demo-2</a>, and six future flights were funded with about $2.7 billion of the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/content/commercial-crew-program-the-essentials" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$3.14 billion</a> in funding awarded to SpaceX through <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-rocket-launch-nasa-astronauts-demo2-commercial-crew-mission-history-2020-5">NASA's Commercial Crew Program</a>.</p><p>The astronauts dubbed their ship "Endeavour" upon reaching orbit, naming it after the first space shuttle each man flew on, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronauts-connect-spacex-crew-dragon-spaceship-international-space-station-2020-5">docked the new vessel</a> to the football field-sized International Space Station a day later.</p><p>While aboard the ISS, Behnken and Hurley <a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2020/07/21/behnken-and-cassidy-conclude-ten-spacewalks-each/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">performed spacewalks</a> to upgrade the power supply system, assisted with chores, and took <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronauts-describe-overview-effect-seeing-earth-from-space-emotions-feelings-2020-6">mesmerizing photos of Earth</a>, space, and even <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-rising-above-earth-astronaut-2020-7">Comet Neowise</a>. Until <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-crew-dragon-return-astronauts-space-station-august-2-2020-7">they've safely landed</a>, though, their mission can't be deemed a success. "I will start sleeping again when they when they're back safely on the planet," <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gwynne-shotwell-spacex-nasa-astronauts-demo2-mission-company-failures-2020-5">Gwynne Shotwell</a>, the president and COO of SpaceX, said during a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-nasa-astronauts-demo2-mission-press-briefings-video-youtube-2011-2020-5">televised briefing</a> on May 1.</p><p>The astronauts plan to board Crew Dragon and undock from the ISS on August 1. Depending on weather conditions, the duo should <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-crew-dragon-return-astronauts-space-station-august-2-2020-7">splash down in the Atlantic Ocean on August 2</a>, NASA said Friday.</p><p>Ahead of those maneuvers, the agency plans use a Canadian-built robotic arm attached to the ISS and on-board cameras to survey the spacecraft for damage.</p><h2>Looking for rare yet dangerous space debris hits</h2><p><div type="image" title="space shuttle endeavour wing debris junk hit hole damage nasa" height="601" width="802" msid="77129324" hostid="261"></div></p><p>NASA and SpaceX need to ensure Crew Dragon's underbelly hasn't been damaged by objects in space.</p><p>In its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacex-crew-dragon-loss-crew-mission-failure-chances-probability-2020-5">estimated risk calculations for Demo-2</a>, NASA determined there's a 1-in-276 chance the mission proves fatal. Especially worrisome is the threat of strikes by MMOD: micrometeoroid (bits of asteroids and comets) and orbital debris (human-made <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-junk-collision-statistics-government-tracking-2017-2018-4">space junk</a>).</p><p>Even grains of sand and flecks of paint can inflict significant serious damage, since they can move many times faster than a speeding bullet before slamming into a spacecraft. MMOD is known to have <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090017679.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">struck NASA spacecraft hundreds of times</a>. It has perforated radiators (as in the above image), cracked circuit boards, chipped windows, and more.</p><p>When Crew Dragon returns to Earth, it does so with its rounded bottom facing in the direction it's flying. That underbelly is covered with a heat shield, or thermal protection system, which is made of tiles of a <a href="https://appel.nasa.gov/2010/10/17/40s_space-x-html/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA-pioneered, SpaceX-improved material called PICA-X</a>.</p><p><div type="image" title="nasa spacex dragon spaceship heat shield pica picax thermal protection system tiles" height="1334" width="2000" msid="77129327" hostid="261"></div></p><p>The PICA-X tiles are designed to deflect and absorb the energy of atmospheric reentry, when Crew Dragon is moving at about 25 times the speed of sound. During reentry, a superheated plasma of gas molecules builds ahead of the heat shield, and temperatures can reach 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit, NASA told Business Insider.</p><p>It's unlikely that any MMOD has damaged the heat shield over the past couple of months, and whatever harm it may have inflicted should be minimal. But NASA is working with SpaceX to be on the safe side and check for any chips, cracks, holes, or other damage.</p><p>After undocking, SpaceX is responsible for ensuring the Crew Dragon is safe to return, which entails reviewing imagery data and running analyses, NASA spokesperson Stephanie Shierholz told Business Insider in an email. "Dragon was designed for the current MMOD environment, so we anticipate the spacecraft would be able to execute the planned deorbit/entry, and it would be very unlikely that significant damage would occur."</p><p>Schierholz noted similar checks are done with Russia's Soyuz <keyword id="1313914" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="spaceships">spaceships</keyword> before they return to Earth.</p><p><div type="image" title="spacex crew dragon endeavour docked international space station iss july 1 2020 iss063e034054" height="2535" width="3381" msid="77129330" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Getting a peek at Crew Dragon's plasma-proof belly might at first seem difficult, given that a cylindrical "trunk" is attached to the capsule. (The solar-panel-covered module, which provides power to the capsule in space and also propels it with a rocket engine, is discarded just before reentry.) However, the trunk is hollow and permits a view.</p><p>"The trunk does not completely cover the thermal protection system, and the survey will be able to visually inspect those areas," Schierholz said. "Also, if micrometeoroid damage is observed on the trunk, then NASA can take additional inspection activities if deemed necessary."</p><p>If significant damage is found after inspection, NASA and SpaceX wouldn't risk sending the astronauts home on the vehicle. Instead, the crew would stay aboard the space station until a new spaceship can be scrambled to collect them.</p><p>"If there is concern about returning the crew on a damaged vehicle, the ISS systems, consumables, and logistics chain supports leaving the crew on the ISS indefinitely as part of a 'safe haven' capability," Schierholz said. "That will provide NASA and the ISS International Partners with the time needed to work with all ISS launch service providers to assess available options for returning the crew safely."</p><p>Hunting for damage to Crew Dragon's heat shield is not the only concern for the crew's safety, though.</p><h2>'We've looked at this six ways to Sunday'</h2><p><div type="image" title="crew dragon spaceship capsule demo 1 atlantic ocean crane recovery ship boat vessel march 2019 KSC 20190308 PH_CSH01_0288_orig" height="1593" width="2124" msid="77129332" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Prior to the Demo-2 mission's launch, SpaceX founder Elon Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/Free_Space/status/1264649197141311488" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Irene Klotz of Aviation Week</a> that he's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-nasa-astronaut-mission-biggest-concern-reentry-danger-2020-5">most concerned about the landing phase</a> of the mission.</p><p>"The part that I would worry most about would be reentry," Musk said.</p><p>Musk said his worry is placed on the capsule's asymmetric design, which is owed to an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-crew-dragon-spaceship-in-flight-abort-test-mission-2020-1">on-board emergency escape system</a>. That system is designed to whisk the capsule away from a failing Falcon 9 rocket at any point during launch, and it is powered by pods with Draco rocket engines.</p><p>If the asymmetry Musk described somehow causes Crew Dragon to rotate or wobble at hypersonic reentry speeds, it could prove dangerous.</p><p>"If you rotate too much, then you could potentially catch the plasma in the SuperDraco escape thruster pods," Musk said. "We've looked at this six ways to Sunday, so it's not that I think this will fail. It's just that I worry a bit that it is asymmetric on the backshell."</p><p>In all likelihood, the risks of either heat shield damage or rotation won't impede the astronauts' voyage. And for their part, Behnken and Hurley accepted those risks long ago.</p><p>Behnken <a href="https://images.nasa.gov/details-KSC-20200522-VP-MMS01-0001-SpaceX_Demo-2_Post_FRR_News_Conference-3248905" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Business Insider ahead of his launch that he and Hurley had <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronaut-suni-williams-on-spacex-boeing-spaceships-2018-6">worked with SpaceX on Crew Dragon</a> for roughly five years, allowing them to gain more insight into the ways the mission could fail "than any crew has in recent history."</p><p>"I think we're really comfortable with it," he said.</p><p><em>This story has been updated.</em></p>

Before 2 astronauts can return to Earth via SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, they'll use a robotic arm to check their ship for space-junk damage

<p>The moon is the largest object floating through space around Earth, but it's not the only one. Actually, there are numerous rocky objects living in our inner solar system that occasionally pass by Earth.</p><p>Duncan Forgan, a research fellow at the University of St. Andrews, recently wrote about one such object called 3753 Cruithne (pronounced krooy-nyuh) on <a href="http://theconversation.com/earths-other-moon-and-its-crazy-orbit-could-reveal-mysteries-of-the-solar-system-38010">The Conversation</a>, where he's calling it "second moon."</p><p>Here's the best picture we have of this tiny, rocky "moon" that's only about 3 miles across. Because of its small size, astronomers need powerful instruments to see Cruithne. The telescope at <a href="http://www.askc.org/powell.htm">Powell Observatory</a> took the image below, where it only shows up as a tiny speck of light.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The space-based instrument <a href="http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/programs/neowise.html">NEOWISE</a> took five images of Cruithne that are compiled into a single image below. NEOWISE scours the sky for near-earth objects like asteroid and comets.<p>The reason the object appears red in this image is because it is radiating light at lower energies than the white stars in the background, <a href="https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Bauer/">James Bauer</a>, a scientist who studies comets at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explained to Business Insider in an email.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Cruithne is a type of object called an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aten_asteroid">Aten asteroid</a>, which is a group of asteroids that live within the inner solar system between Earth and the sun. It has a weird path through space where it orbits both the sun and the Earth in a strange kidney-shaped path.</p><p>Aten asteroids are relatively small, which is why astronomers only recently discovered them. The first Aten asteroid was found in 1976 and Cruithne was not discovered until 1994.</p><h2>How to see it</h2><p><a href="http://www.astro.uwo.ca/~wiegert/">Paul Wiegert</a>, who studies Cruithne at the University of Western Ontario, told Business Insider in an email that "it's very hard to see [Cruithne] in even a very large telescope except as a small star like dot."</p><p>But it is possible.</p><p>Below is an image of where the object will be in the sky tomorrow [Wednesday] morning during sunrise. Wiegert pin points the exact location and says: "You'd have to look towards the sunrise. The asteroid is at the center of the red cross, and not far from the planet Mercury, in the constellation of Capricorn."</p><p>You'll need access to a pretty powerful telescope, though. "It is so faint that there is no way to find it by eye," Wiegert said. "Or even with a modest telescope."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/end-fall-demise-mayan-civilization-new-evidence-2015-1">Scientists Discovered What Actually Wiped Out The Mayan Civilization</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="55ampxcjoS7Wta3JMLFeUrzwVtgPrh0g" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

These are the only pictures we have of Earth's 'second moon'

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>On January 4, NASA announced <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-new-asteroid-missions-2017-1">two new space missions</a> to explore the solar system: Lucy, a probe that will visit swarms of ancient asteroids lurking near Jupiter, and Psyche, which will orbit the all-metal core of a dead planet.</p><p>These winners of the Discovery program, as it's known, will each get $450 million to build their robots, plus a rocket to launch them.</p><p>"This is what Discovery Program missions are all about - boldly going to places we've never been to enable groundbreaking <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword>," Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-two-missions-to-explore-the-early-solar-system">a Jan. 4 press release</a>.</p><p>But in a pile of rejected finalists, sitting alongside two conceptual <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/venus-deadly-surface-conditions-2016-12">missions to Venus</a>, is a space telescope that might one day save countless lives on Earth from a killer asteroid: a threat Zurbuchen himself <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6669">has said</a> is "not a matter of if - but when."</p><p>It's called the <a href="http://neocam.ipac.caltech.edu">Near-Earth Objects Camera</a>, or NEOCam, and it promises to discover tens of thousands of rogue space rocks roughly 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter or bigger. That size is by design: Congress <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-109publ155/pdf/PLAW-109publ155.pdf">passed a law in 2005</a> charging NASA - as one of its seven explicitly stated goals - to find 90% of such near-Earth objects (NEOs) by 2020.</p><p>The reason is because asteroids and comets of this size are notoriously difficult to detect, yet can slug our planet or explode in our atmosphere with the energy of least 60 megatons' worth of TNT. That's more powerful than the largest <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nuclear-weapons-expansion-risk-2017-1">nuclear weapon</a> ever detonated.</p><p>"You do that over a city, and it's a very, very bad day," <a href="https://www.psi.edu/about/staffpage/sykes">Mark Sykes</a>, director of the Planetary Science Institute and a scientist on the NEOCam team, told Business Insider. "It's important to look at your neighborhood, from a planetary defense standpoint."</p><p>While NASA did commit to partially fund NEOCam for a year, it's effectively the space agency's third pass on launching the telescope in a decade. (The mission was submitted in two previous rounds of Discovery.)</p><p>Meanwhile, NASA is running years behind its Congressional mandate to find NEOs, and Earth is mostly blind to threats that might one day level a city.</p><p>Just this past Monday, for instance, an asteroid possibly as large as a 10-story building <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-flyby-nearer-than-moon-2017-1">flew past Earth closer than the moon</a> at 9.8 miles per second (15.7 kilometers per second) - and yet astronomers only learned of its existence 2 days beforehand.</p><h2>We live on a moving target for killer space rocks</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Astronomers like to say Earth is drifting through a cosmic shooting gallery.</p><p>It's no wonder why.</p><p>Any space rock that zooms within 125 million miles (200 million kilometers) of Earth is considered an NEO, and - so far - humanity has located about <a href="http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/">15,500 such objects</a>. Relative to Earth, the average one is about <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6664">30 million miles</a> (50 million kilometers) away and moving <a href="https://spaceguardcentre.com/what-are-neos/near-earth-objects-impact-effects/">between</a> 27,000 mph (12 kilometers per second) and 45,000 mph (20 kilometers per second) - akin to flying the length of Manhattan once a second.</p><p>About 9% of these NEOs, or some <a href="http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/groups.html">1,759 space rocks</a>, are called "potentially hazardous" objects (PHOs), meaning they come within 4.6 million miles (7.48 million kilometers) of Earth.</p><p>Their sizes vary wildly, so a strike could mean anything from broken windows, like the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/no-one-saw-chelyabinsk-meteor-over-russia-coming-could-happen-again-2016-4">2013 asteroid-caused air burst over Chelyabinsk, Russia</a>, to global extinction, like the impact that helped <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dinosaur-extinction-may-have-been-affected-by-slow-egg-incubations-2016-12">wipe out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago</a>.</p><p>The animation below, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/asteroids-near-earth-animation-youtube-2016-3">by Scott Manley</a>, shows what the playing field looks like these days, and it is not comforting. Planets are teal (Earth is the third one from center), yellow and red show NEOs (red means they cross Earth's orbit), and green shows more distant, main-belt asteroids:</p><p>But these are just the ones we know about.</p><p>Roughly 72% of all NEOs that are 460 feet (140 meters) or larger have <em>not</em> been found, according to the "<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/NSTC/national_neo_preparedness_strategy_final.pdf">National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy</a>", a report published by the White House's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in December 2016. This amounts to about 25,000 nearby asteroids and roughly 2,300 hazardous ones.</p><p>That doesn't mean we shouldn't be worried about smaller space rocks, though; in fact, quite the opposite.</p><p>"An asteroid much smaller, just 45 meters [150 feet] across, exploded in 1908 over Tunguska with an explosive energy of several megatons and destroyed an area as large as New York City," <a href="http://stanford.edu/~rdb3/">Roger Blandford</a>, a physicist at Stanford University, wrote in <a href="http://spacenews.com/op-ed-policing-the-cosmic-neighborhood/">a September 2015 op-ed for Space News</a>. "Congress calls these smaller asteroids 'city killers,' and although they are 30 times more numerous, we have located less than 1% of them."</p><p>In raw numbers, "over 300,000 objects greater than 40 meters [130 feet] in size could be an impact hazard to the Earth and have not yet been detected," according to NSTC's report.</p><p>The chart below, recently created by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, sums up the gaping holes (in green) of NEO survey efforts thus far:</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="NASA/JPL-Caltech" title_caption="Fewer asteroids exist than previously thought, but smaller space rocks elude easy detection." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image-960/587564a8f10a9a283f8b5274-2400"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></div><p></p></div></div><p>If you're a space rock, you reflect sunlight. Telescopes that are looking in the right place at the right time can see you as a dot sneaking across the blackness of space, allowing scientists to calculate your mass, speed, orbit, and the odds that you'll smack into Earth.</p><p>If you're a small NEO, though, you aren't very bright. This means a telescope has to be very big and use very advanced hardware to find you - but big, bad telescopes are expensive and take a very long time to build and calibrate.</p><p>Take the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), for example, which is one of Earth's best current hopes of finding killer asteroids. The project broke ground in 2015 and is expected to <a href="https://www.lsst.org/sites/default/files/ProjectOverviewKahnLSST2014.pdf">cost upwards of $465 million to build</a>. Based on its current <a href="https://www.lsst.org/about/timeline">construction schedule</a>, it won't be fully operational until late 2021, at the soonest, or able to fulfill the 90% detection goal set by Congress until the mid-2030s - more than a decade behind-schedule.</p><p>LSST, like all ground-based observatories, also comes with two major limitations.</p><p>The first: "You can't see asteroids near the sun. You're blinded by the sky," Sykes said. "Right now we have to wait until those pop out in front of us. To get those guys, you really need to be in space - where you're not blinded by the sky."</p><p>Sykes said the other snag is that ground-based telescopes mainly rely on visible light for detection.</p><p>"If [an asteroid] has a dark surface, it's going to be very hard to see," he said.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>NEOCam goes after these two problems by being in space, where no atmospheric gases get in the way, and by using an advanced, high-resolution infrared (IR) camera.</p><p>IR light is a longer wavelength of light that's invisible to our eyes, but if a source is strong enough - say, a roaring fire - we can feel it as warmth on our skin.</p><p>Sun-warmed asteroids emit infrared light, even when they're coasting through the void, or are too dark for ground-based telescopes to see. Which means NEOCam could spot them <a href="http://neocam.ipac.caltech.edu/page/whyinfrared">by their heat signatures</a>.</p><p>The approach works. The prime example is NASA's 8-year-old Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope, which has found <a href="http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/wise/">at least 230 NEOs and 42 PHOs</a> from orbit.</p><p>However, it's a less powerful telescope, has a smaller field of view, an older camera that requires cryogenic cooling (NEOCam's does not), and wasn't designed solely to hunt asteroids. While scientists gave it a new mission to do so in 2013, <a href="http://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu/">renaming the project NEOWISE</a>, the telescope is scheduled to end operations in March 2017.</p><p>"[A] space-based observatory, working in concert with observations from ground-based telescopes, may be the best approach to detecting, tracking, and characterizing the NEO population," the NSTC's December 2016 report states. "This combination would more rapidly complete the survey of objects larger than 140 meters [460 feet] while greatly improving our understanding of the hazard from the 50-140 meter [160-460 feet] NEO population."</p><p>The NEOCam team proposed to launch in 2021 and find two-thirds of missing objects in the larger-than-460-feet (140 meters) category within 4 years - about a decade ahead of LSST's schedule.</p><p>This would help address the NSTC's concern on the issue:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Finding NEOs as early as possible is the first priority for planetary defense, in order to give adequate time to make decisions and implement courses of action. This fact must be stressed: the earlier a NEO threat is detected, the better the emergency response to the threat will be."</p><p>So if launching a capable replacement for NEOWISE is a priority, why didn't NASA pick it?</p><h2>The forces keeping NEOCam grounded</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Only NASA knows why it didn't pick NEOCam for launch, but it isn't telling anyone, not even Sykes and his colleagues - at least not yet.</p><p>The space agency first wants to debrief the NEOCam team on the snags it saw with of its <a href="https://discovery.nasa.gov">Discovery program</a> proposal, a meeting that a NASA representative said will happen as early as next week.</p><p>"The Discovery review process identified strengths and weaknesses for all 5 mission proposals. As with Lucy and Psyche, NEOCam will be asked to address any issues that were raised in the review," David Schurr, deputy director of NASA's planetary science program, told Business Insider in an emailed statement.</p><p>During NEOCam's debriefing, the space agency will "work and negotiate with the [...] team" on a funding level for the next year, <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/about-us/leadership/dr-jim-green">Jim Green</a>, director of NASA's planetary science division, told reporters during a Jan. 4 NASA teleconference.</p><p>"Whether it's a drip or a flood, we'll find out soon," Sykes said.</p><p>After that year of funding runs out, however, all bets are currently off: NASA will have to "<a href="https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/819226787305627648">look for money</a>" under a new presidential administration, according to Green, if it wants to keep the project alive. ("No flow, no go," Sykes said.)</p><p>The hangup with NEOCam is not likely any lack of engineering prowess - "the rumor is that there were no major weaknesses [with the proposal]," one source who asked not to be named told Business Insider - but rather a bureaucratic technicality: a case of trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>That's because the mandate of NASA's Discovery program is to pull off scientific "firsts" in the solar system.<p>An unprecedented mission to the metal core of a dead planet fits the bill, while a space-based asteroid detector is something humanity already tried with WISE (the NEO hunter launched in 2009).</p><p>But Sykes contends that NEOCam is a truly unique mission that could help NASA pull off its next planned era of crewed exploration - <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nasa-mars-sample-return-mission-2016-12">to near-Earth asteroids</a> - by locating most of the remaining NEOs of interest.</p><p>"If we want to send people beyond low-Earth orbit, an asteroid costs much less than the surface of the moon or Mars," Sykes said. "We can identify targets that are quick-turnaround times of weeks or months, to minimize the radiation exposure [in deep space] to astronauts."</p><p>In addition, Sykes said, finding perhaps tens of thousands of new NEOs would lay more groundwork for efforts to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-value-of-asteroid-mining-2016-11">mine asteroids for precious metals</a>, gather fuel for deep-space exploration, and other novel (and scientific) human endeavors.</p><p>Former astronaut <a href="https://b612foundation.org/our-team/#ed-lu">Ed Lu</a>, who's also a co-founder of <a href="https://b612foundation.org">the B612 Foundation</a> - a group dedicated to launching its own NEO-detecting space telescope, called <a href="https://b612foundation.org/sentinel/">Sentinel</a> - has grown impatient with the delays.</p><p>To get an asteroid hunter off the ground, Lu said, NASA needs to try something new, and fast.</p><p>"[T]here should be an open competition based on a planetary defense rather than a science requirement, as with the Discovery mission," Lu told Business Insider in an email. "Detecting dangerous asteroids is a concern of national security, not just science."</p><p>Blandford, the Stanford physicist, hit this message home in <a href="http://spacenews.com/op-ed-policing-the-cosmic-neighborhood/">his Space News op-ed</a>.</p><p>"[P]lanetary defense is currently treated as a scientific issue, and forced to compete with other science missions," he wrote, "instead of being seen as a long-term imperative for the protection of humanity."</p><p><em>Kelly Dickerson and Paul Szoldra contributed to this post.</em></p><div><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:59%"></div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/molten-salt-reactor-technology-power-world-millions-years-2016-12">This Cold War-era technology could safely power the world for millions of years</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="hoOXhiODE6mtYAnzOSgYhFwj_jwPpGtb" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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