‘Devil comet’ is about to make its closest approach of Earth An unusual horned comet notable for a series of outbursts, nicknamed the "devil comet," will make its closest approach of Earth on Sunday around 3 a.m. ET. While the comet hasn’t been visible to those in the Northern Hemisphere since the first week of May, sky-gazers in the Southern Hemisphere have a better chance of glimpsing the fuzzy object through binoculars or kraken12 at a telescope. Exactly why the dynamic comet takes on a shape that has drawn comparisons to the Millennium Falcon spacecraft from the "Star Wars" films when explosively active is still an enigma to scientists. But the celestial object only completes one orbit around the sun about every 71 years, similar to Halley’s comet, which make the odds of observing it for close study a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.