A comet uniquely shaped like Han Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon, is due to swerve near Earth this spring, and if the weather cooperates, Star Wars fans won't have to travel to a galaxy far, far away to catch a glimpse of it. Per NBC News, Comet 12/P Pons-Brooks is on its 71-year orbit around the sun, and come June 2, it will be within viewing distance for the first time since 1954. The "horns" of gas and ice trailing on both sides of the comet have altered its shape (more metal star-gazers may liken those horns to a devil shape, inspiring some astronomers to nickname it the "devil's comet").
The horns likely formed when the comet erupted in July and October this year. Richard Miles of the British Astronomy Association told CBS News that the "largely tenuous cloud of dust and gas" stick out because the sizable nucleus of the comet (estimated to be between 18 to 25 miles across) forms a shadow over the coma (a bright gas cloud). The dust passing over that nucleus "creates the hollowed-out shape and horns, so that the whole outburst coma looks a bit like the Millennium Falcon spaceship," he said. Astronomers say it could be visible in April, as it nears the sun, and again in June, when it is closest to Earth.
In the right conditions—clear, dark skies—people may see the comet without the aid of a telescope. Amateur astronomer Eliot Herman captured photos of it using remote telescopes in Utah. "The NASA SOHO space probe captures images from space of comets close to the sun, many per year, but seeing one with the eye close to the sun is impossible unless there is an eclipse, and there will be," he told NBC. "I will be in Texas and hope to see it and photograph it." While the comet is within viewing distance, there's no reason to fret it will crash into our planet. Miles notes that its distance is 70 times further away than the moon and "a collision is entirely out of the question." (Comets are fun to see, but are probably terrible to smell).
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