One of the bodies is a comet known as C/2016 U1 NEOWISE, which was first discovered by Nasa’s NEOWISE mission – the asteroid hunting project – in October last year, is set to reach its closest point on January 14. According to Nasa’s Paul Chodas, the comet ”has a good chance of becoming visible through a good pair of binoculars, although we can’t be sure because a comet’s brightness is notoriously unpredictable.”