There might not be another naked-eye comet for quite a long time

There are a handful of comets that are naked-eye candidates for the next few years, but none are guaranteed to reach this level of brightness.

under ideal conditions. But when might the next naked-eye comet appear following this event—and are astronomers even able to predict such phenomena?

For a comet to reach naked-eye brightness, it must approach close to the Earth or sun, while being sufficiently large. While the future trajectory of comets can be determined with a high degree of accuracy, predicting the brightness of comets is a notoriously tricky business. This characteristic is difficult to forecast because it depends on how sunlight is scattered by dust particles in the coma and tail.

Given that the brightness of comets is inherently challenging to predict, the question of when the next naked-eye comet might appear is difficult to answer with any degree of confidence.

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