Great Comets

The 'Great Comet of 1997', a long-period comet with an exceptionally large, active nucleus that remained visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months.

The 'Great Comet of 1996', which passed very close to Earth and displayed one of the longest comet tails ever recorded.

One of the brightest comets of the past thousand years — a Kreutz sungrazer that became visible in daylight near the Sun in October 1965.

The 'Great Comet of 2007', the brightest comet in decades, whose vast fanned dust tail was a spectacular sight from the Southern Hemisphere.

The brightest comet visible from the Northern Hemisphere since Hale–Bopp, a naked-eye spectacle in July 2020 discovered by the NEOWISE space telescope.