Space & Science enthusiasts are going to witness two comets zooming past earth this month. Both the comets have similar orbits, which makes them interesting subjects for further study.

Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT) has contributed in the finding of new earth-passing comets. The 4.3-meter telescope located at Lowell Observatory identified the second comet coming towards earth.

One of the comets, dubbed Comet P/2016 BA14, was previously identified as an asteroid. PanSTARRS telescope of the University of Hawaii first spotted the comet in January this year. Astronomers thought it was an asteroid, but when University of Maryland and Lowell Observatory worked together to know more about it, they found that it’s a comet heading towards us.

The DCT was used by the team to closely watch the small comet. Astronomers predict that Comet P/2016 BA14 will zoom past earth along with Comet 252P/LINEAR on March 21. 252P, which was first discovered in 2000, is estimated to fly 3.3 million miles away from our planet. Comet P/2016 BA14 is expected to swing past earth at a close distance of about 2.2 million miles.

Comet P/2016 BA14 could be a fragment of 252P/LINEAR, as per Paul Chodas of NASA’s Center of NEO Studies (CNEOS). Both the comets’ orbits are very similar, so there are possibilities that they are linked to each other, Chodas continued.

There are some comets in the universe that are relatively fragile objects. In 1993, a comet, called Shoemaker-Levy 9, was spotted whose pieces were related to a flyby of Jupiter. “Perhaps during a previous pass through the inner-solar system, or during a distant flyby of Jupiter, a chunk that we now know of as BA14 might have broken off of 252P”, said Chodas.