This week is the best chance to see comet Lovejoy for the next 8,000 years

Comet Lovejoy has been delighting skywatchers worldwide throughout the holidays and is now set to take centre stage in the evening skies as it reaches its peak brightness.

On Wednesday, the three-kilometre-wide icy visitor from the fringes of the solar system reached its closest distance to Earth, just 70 million kilometres away – about half the distance between our planet and the Sun. But, now the comet’s distance from us won’t be changing for many nights to come, offering lots of opportunity to check this amazing sky show out for yourself.

At this point, the comet is not generating enough dust to form an bright tail with the naked eye, but astrophotographers have been capturing amazing snapshots of a ghostly tail sweeping back from the head of the comet.

And the most recent photos taken by backyard astronomers have been recording strange, blob-like features in the blue-coloured tail, according to spaceweather.com.

Astronomers believe there may be a magnetic storm underway within the coma of the comet. Magnetic energy appears to have built up due to recent solar flares coming off the sun that sent clouds of charged particles into space, smashing into the comet.

These cosmic collisions with the solar storms have created waves and ruptures in the comet’s tail. The process is similar to the geomagnetic storms that hit the Earth’s atmosphere and cause aurora borealis to colour our skies.

Comet Lovejoy was discovered by its namesake, Australian astronomer Terry Lovejoy, back in August. It has been slowly brightening from a target only visible through giant telescopes to an easy binocular target just before Christmas. And now it is officially visible to the unaided-eyes from dark locations.

Astronomers are excited to get detailed views of Lovejoy, because they believe comets are cosmic time capsules of when the solar system was just forming 4.5 billion years ago.

It is believed that Lovejoy takes as long as 40,000 years to make one trip around the Sun. It is considered a long-period comet that probably originates from the Oort Cloud, a frozen reservoir of hibernating comets many times father way from us than Pluto.

Its long orbit also means that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see this icy visitor.

If you want check out the comet yourself, it is easy to find shining at 4th magnitude – making it just visible with the naked eye from the city and an easy target for binoculars. It is currently barrelling through the Orion constellation now visible in the southern sky around midnight.

Over the next two weeks, Lovejoy will be climbing ever higher in the early evening sky, passing through some of the landmark winter constellations like Taurus and Aries.

Mark Jan. 15 through 17 on your calendar, as the comet passes only 10 degrees to the right of the bright Pleiades star cluster – which is visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch high in the southwestern evening sky. This cosmic oddball pairing should make it much easier for newbie stargazers to hunt down the comet and will surely create an amazing photo opportunity.