‘Once in a lifetime’ comet, bigger than Mount Everest, could become visible to the naked eye in the coming weeks – here’s how to see it

Stargazers have a unique opportunity this month to see a comet larger than Mount Everest zoom across the sky.

Officially known as Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, the comet has been compared to the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars because of the pair of ‘horns’ seen in images.

Amateur astronomers have already taken pictures of the comet with specialized telescopes, but it should soon become visible to the naked eye.

To see Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, look west in the night sky and find the Great Square of Pegasus – the four stars of almost equal brightness.

Over the next few weeks, the comet will move from the Great Square of Pegasus to Aries the Aries, forming a loose V-shape.

The comet completes an orbit around the sun every 71 years and is only seen once from Earth during that period, making it a unique experience.

Pons-Brooks will come as close as 72.5 million miles (116.8 million km) to the sun on April 21.

It will then make a close approach to Earth of 144 million miles (232 million km) on June 2.

However, if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, the best time to see it is in late March, according to Jessica Lee, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

Although it is difficult to predict what a comet will look like and how bright it will become, the public should be on the lookout for what appears to be “an irregularly shaped dirty snowball.”

“This comet is predicted to reach maximum brightness for Northern Hemisphere viewers in late March,” Lee told MailOnline.

‘At the end of March the comet will be in the constellation Aries, which is in the western sky just after sunset.

‘Ideally you want to go somewhere with a clear view of the horizon in the west, and choose a night with clear skies.’

When this close approach occurs, 12P/Pons-Brooks is expected to be visible to the naked eye as a faint star-like blob with a fuzzy tail.

“Right now, one of the brightest known periodic comets is heading towards the Sun,” says Professor Paul Strøm, an astrophysicist at the University of Warwick.

‘It is also a large comet with a size comparable to that of Mount Everest.

‘The comet is expected to reach magnitude 4.5, which means it should be visible from a dark location in Britain.’

After the space rock comes closest to us, it is thrown back by gravity to the outer solar system and will not return until 2095.

Comets consist of a nucleus made up of ice, dust and small rocky particles, surrounded by an outer ‘coma’: a hazy cloud of gases.

12P/Pons-Brooks is what is known as a cryovolcanic – or cold volcano – comet, meaning it exhibits volcanic activity.

But instead of spewing molten rock and lava like a volcano on Earth, a cryovolcanic comet releases a mixture of gases and ice.

When a cryovolcanic comet approaches the Sun – as 12P/Pons-Brooks is doing now – it heats up and builds up pressure in its core.

The pressure continues to build until nitrogen and carbon monoxide explode and icy debris is ejected through large cracks in the core’s shell.

These gas streams can take on distinctive shapes when viewed through a telescope, such as devil horns, also described as a horseshoe or the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.

According to an astronomer, the comet erupted on October 31 – the second time in a calendar month and the third time since July.

Arizona-based amateur astronomer Eliot Herman, who has been monitoring the comet, said it abruptly brightened almost a hundredfold on October 31 and continued to brighten over the following days.

Like planets, comets in our solar system orbit the sun because they are attracted by the sun’s enormous gravity.

It takes 12P/Pons-Brooks 71 years to complete an orbit around the Sun, but this is relatively short compared to the orbit length of most orbits, which take thousands of years.