Portal:Astronomy/Picture/22 July 2005

Comet Hyakutake was a surprise celestial visitor in 1996. As astronomers awaited the entry into the inner Solar System of Comet Hale–Bopp, the comet discovered by Yuji Hyakutake raced past the Earth at a distance of just 0.1 astronomical units, one of the closest cometary passages for many decades. It became very bright, and was well seen by large numbers of people in the Northern Hemisphere