An obscure comet discovered more than a century ago suddenly became about a million times brighter late last month, wowing amateur astronomers in Colorado and around the world.

Scientists are so intrigued with the changeable Comet Holmes, they asked for - and got - emergency viewing time on the over-scheduled Hubble Space Telescope last week.

The astronomers are eager to see the results, said Jimmy Westlake, an astronomy professor at Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs.

"It was like the full moon becoming as bright as the sun - overnight," Westlake said.

"And it keeps changing, every day," he said. "Did it get hit by a piece of space junk? Did the comet fragment? Everyone in the world is waiting to see what happens next."

The comet was discovered in the 1890s by amateur astronomer Edwin Holmes. At the time it was also strangely luminous for a few months, said Chris Peterson, owner of a robotic telescope in Guffey that's used to track big meteors for the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Holmes completes its orbit every seven years, but it never gets close enough to the sun to go through the regular, bright outgassings of more well-known comets, such as Halley or Hale-Bopp, he said.

 Source : The Denver Post