GREAT BALL O'FIRE:  NOTABLY BRIGHT COMET APPROACHING

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., March 14 -- Coming soon to the sky
near you is Comet Hyakutake, which astronomers say could well be
notably bright.  Experts predict that it could be visible to the
naked eye beginning on March 21 and will brighten nightly through
early April.  The comet, also known as C/1996 B2, was discovered by
Japanese comet-hunter Yuji Hyakutake, who spotted the celestial
object with powerful binoculars on Jan. 30.   
	"Everyone's very excited about this comet," says planetary
scientist Karen Magee-Sauer, who is a visiting researcher at the
University of Virginia. "This comet is expected to be the brightest
in at least 20 years," she says.  Some observers think Hyakutake
could be the intrinsically brightest comet in centuries, although
light-pollution in cities now makes any comet appear less
spectacular than they seemed in the years before artificial
illumination.
	If people want to look for the comet, Magee-Sauer advises,
they should go outside after 11 p.m. and allow their eyes to become
adapted to the dark.  Then, look to the east to the bright star,
Arcturus.  (Arcturus can be located by following the arc formed by
the handle of the Big Dipper.)  Hold your arm out and make a fist,
says Magee-Sauer. "Comet Hyakutake should be visible as a bright dot
surrounded by a fuzzy disk just below your fist."  (The comet can
currently be seen -- with binoculars -- in the constellation Libra
around dawn.)
	 Based on its predicted path past earth and around the sun,
astronomers believe that this is at least the second time Comet
Hyakutake has been through our solar system.  Comets on their first
trip through our neighborhood are usually less spectacular than ones
that have been by before, says Magee-Sauer.  Although predicting the
brightness of an approaching comet is notoriously tricky,
Magee-Sauer says measurements thus far indicate that Comet Hyakutake
has a good chance of becoming a notably bright object, even to the
naked eye.  According to astronomers at the Harvard Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., "C/1996 B2 is
intrinsically the brightest earth-approacher since the early
eighteenth century, and the 55 days between discovery and earth
approach is a record."
	At its closest, around March 25, Comet Hyakutake will come
within 9.5 million miles of earth.  Magee-Sauer notes that this is
40 times more distant than the moon, but it is still quite a close
pass in astronomical terms.  After streaking over the Northern
Hemisphere, Comet Hyakutake will continue on around the sun and will
reach perihelion (its closest approach to the sun) on May 1.
	###
March 13, 1996
	REPORTERS AND EDITORS:  For further information about the
expected course of Comet Hyakutake, contact Karen Magee-Sauer at
(804) 924-3213 (office) or (804) 293-7108 (home).  You may also
contact U.Va. professor Robert Johnson at (804) 924-3244 or e-mail
at rej@virginia.edu.

	For more information about Comet Hyakutake (including images
of comets) see the following Web pages:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/info1996B2.html
http://www.skypub.com/comets/hyaku3.html#top
http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/comets_long/96B2.html

	Information about viewing Comet Hyakutake locally, including
at Fan Mountain Observatory, will be posted at:
http://www.astro.virginia.edu