Look Up in the sky! What the hell is it? It is a comet...... It is an asteroid....... A mysterious object will be hovering past Earth next month. Although, its features are so rare that even the brightest brains over at NASA can’t find out what really it is. The object called 2016 WF9 was noticed by NASA’s comet and asteroid hunting NEOWISE project on November 27- 2016. NEOWISE researchers have faith in that it could be as large as 1 km wide. It is likely to make its closest approach to Earth’s orbit on February 25 at a distance of 32 million miles or 51 million kilometers.
The object is producing a bit of misperception among NASA researchers, as they can’t tell if it is an asteroid or a comet. As a general rule, comets tend be icier while asteroids tend to be rocky or more metallic. This object seems to be unreflective and dark, which is usually a sign it is a comet. In spite of that, it lacks the feature gas and dust cloud that describes it is a comet. This deficiency of precision also means the object has an unknown source.
“2016 WF9 could have cometary source," Deputy Principal Investigator at NASA James "Gerbs" said in a statement. "This object demonstrates that the border between comets and asteroids is a hazy one; maybe over time this object has lost the preponderance of the volatiles that just under its surface or remains on it."
NEOWISE did, although manage to notice and discover another object that they recognize more about. It will be viewable from the Northern Hemisphere in the southeastern sky throughout the hours before sunrise. You will even be able to catch a sight of it with a good pair of binoculars, if the cloud exposure and random glare of the comet is satisfactory.
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