in orbit around the star Sol
in the Milky-Way
galaxy. The Comet was visible to the naked human eye
(assuming 20/20 vision, of course) from the third planet orbiting said star, called by its inhabitance "Earth
", during the Spring and Summer of the Earth-year 1996 in the northern hemisphere (Fall and Winter in teh southern hemisphere).
The European Space Agency/NASA spacecraft named Ulysses on May 9th passed through a point where the Hyakutake comet had been on May 1st, only 8 days previous. An astounding breakthrough in comet knowledge emerged when the Ulysses reported fragments of comet composition, meaning it had passed through the comet's tail. Researchers found that the comet's tail measured more than 500 million kilometers--more than double what was thought before--with most of it invisible to the unaided eye.