Comet Neowise and the Great Bear

A new comet has appeared in our skies this month. This comet was named Neowise, for the space telescope that first spotted it. She first came into our consciousness on March 27, 2020. At that point, she could only be seen by telescope. This comet spun around the Sun on July 3, 2020, and as always with comets, there was some uncertainty as to whether she would survive this passage. She did, and she is now visible in the Northern Hemisphere with the naked eye. She is the brightest comet we have seen in over 30 years.

By SkiEngineer – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92245474

Traditional View of Comets

Comets were seen as omens and harbingers of important events. Unfortunately, these events were usually tragedies. In most cases, they warned of famine, floods, invasions, war, plague, and things of that nature. They could also indicate the death of a…