'Devil Comet' Hurtling Towards Earth Could Explode In Space Today

These eruptions can create unique visual patterns when viewed through a telescope, such as the devil horns.

A comet nicknamed the "Devil Comet" for its horned blasts is approaching Earth, spewing ice and gas every 15 days like clockwork. It erupts when its sun-facing side aligns with solar heat, triggered by its 2-week rotation. The latest blast was on December 14, with the next expected around December 29–30. Astronomers are fascinated by this cosmic clockwork.

“The last few outbursts have been on a 15-day cadence, and we might be coming up with another one,” Nick James of the British Astronomical Association (BAA) told Spaceweather.com.

The New York Post reported that the comet, known as 12P, is a cryovolcano—or cold comet—that erupts when a large amount of gas and ice amasses and combusts like frozen Coke cans. This causes the frosty guts of the comet, which measure 18.6 miles in diameter, or the size of a small city, to spout from large cracks in the nucleus' crust.