April Fools' Comet Coming Close To Earth April 1

There’s a comet headed towards Earth for April Fools’ Day, but there’s nothing to worry about. While the comet will come as close as it ever has, it will still be a safe 13.2 million miles from the blue planet.

The comet, called Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák for the astronomers who tracked throughout a century, was discovered in 1858 by Horace Tuttle of Harvard, according to Space.com.

Read: Comet 67P: Rosetta Images Reveal Tumbling Rocks, Collapsing Cliffs And Widening Cracks

The comet orbits the sun roughly every 5.5 years and this year it will come as close to Earth as it ever has. The April Fools’ Day comet is heading towards its perihelion passage on April 12, perihelion is the term used to explain the point in orbit in which an object is closest to the sun.

So right now the comet is on track running almost parallel to Earth, and will be close to Earth for a few days, closest on the first of April, closer than most comets ever come.

With the comet close it will be fairly easy to see, on a dark night with either a small telescope or high quality binoculars, says Space.com. However it won’t look like much, just a little ball of light, but in the event that it undergoes a burst, it might become visible to the naked eye. Last time it surged was 1973, and since then it seems to have surged when coming close to the sun to the chance is there.

The T-G-K comet will be closest to Earth on April 1, but will be close to Earth until April 3 on its way to perihelion on the 12th.