Top 8 Comets Flying Closest to Earth

People rarely worry about what’s going on high above their heads. And why should they? Whatever is out there, if it hits us – we’re dead; and if it doesn’t – why worry? This issue is that a lot of things can fall from the sky almost at any moment. In total, scientists have counted over 18,000 space objects close to Earth. Of these thousands, comets are the smallest part. There are only a little more than a hundred of them but if any of them ever smashes into Earth… well, Mars will become the third planet from the Sun.

Here are the top 8 comets flying closest to Earth.

1. 209P / LINEAR – 8 325 000 km

The further the comet is from Earth, the harder it is to observe it. Duh, I know. But this celestial wanderer, discovered in 2004, was first mistaken for an asteroid. Back then, it did not come very close to our planet. Noticing and correctly defining an object that’s 2.4km in diameter when it’s flying over 8,000,000 km away is not an easy job. By the way, in 2020 the comet will come to visit us again, and this time it should be much closer!

2. Pons-Winnecke Comet – 5,910,000 km

Comet Pons-Winnecke is also Jupiter’s little chew toy. This is a rather large celestial body (2.6 km in diameter), and it was supposed to the solar system, but the orbit of the comet has changed a lot thanks to Jupiter. It passed closest to Earth in 1927, but after a number of years its orbit deviated 10,000,000 km to the side, and since then it gets further and further away with every cycle (every six years).

3. 252P / LINEAR – 5,370,000 km

This recently discovered comet can be very dangerous to our planet, as its orbit is changed by Jupiter’s massive gravity. Little by little the trajectory changes and we’ll see how it ends for us in 2021.