Most recent Great Comet

Over the course of 2013, astronomers worldwide became increasingly hopeful that Comet ISON would prove to be one of the Great Comets seen from Earth. Great Comets are those which become spectacularly bright in the night sky but it seems Comet ISON was mostly destroyed by its passage close to the Sun in November 2013. The most recent Great Comet was Comet McNaught, first discovered by Robert McNaught (Australia) in 2006. At its maximum brightness, around perihelion on 12 January 2007, its tail measured a maximum of 35 degrees long in the sky.