WACO, Texas (KWTX) – If you happened to go outside and look at the night sky this weekend, you may have caught a glimpse of a rare comet slowly making its way across Earth’s sky.

This comet hasn’t come close to Earth in 80,000 years, and now is your only chance to see it with your own eyes.

“It may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Johnny Barton of the Central Texas Astronomical Society.

What makes this particular comet so rare, according to Barton, is how easy it is to see.

“Normally we don’t see a comet this bright very often. It is about every twenty years that we see a comet visible to the naked eye,” he explained.

It was first discovered in January 2023 by an observatory in China and later confirmed to be a comet by the ATLAS group, giving it the name C-2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-Atlas.

After months of watching this comet travel through space, it is finally here, but only for a short time.

“It’s within about 45 million miles of Earth. It made its closest pass on the 12th and it’s now moving away from us,” Barton said.

The best visibility was last weekend, but it will still be visible in the coming days.

As the comet moves away from Earth, the Sun’s gravity will elongate the comet’s tail.

Barton said: “It was very impressive last night and it will be very impressive in the coming nights.” You just need to know when and where to look.

Barton explained that “it will take until about 7:30-7:45, maybe closer to 8, before it gets dark enough to see… and it will be in the same area where the sun set. ”.

If you need help finding it, all you have to do is grab some binoculars or just use your phone’s camera.

Barton warns that it will become harder to see as it heads back into space, traveling at about 200,000 miles per hour.

“It’s going to move about four or five degrees across the sky every night, so it’s going to get a little bit higher every night and a little bit further away from us every night,” he said.

And once this comet is gone, it won’t be visible from Earth for another 80,000 years, so make sure you get out there and take some photos.

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