Watch: Rare Video of Comet Flyby from NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) radars captured the shadowy images of the comet flyby, one of two taking place in a week, over three days from March 21 to 23. Space scientists claim this to be historic as the object known as P/2016 BA14 was at a distance of 2.2 million miles (or 3.6 million kilometers) from earth at the closest point of the comet flyby.

NASA captured the images of the flyby by using instruments in the Deep Space Network in Goldstone, California. The Deep Space Network was built to link a series of massive radio antennas for NASA's various interplanetary missions.

The last comet flyby that came closer to earth was Lexell's Comet which did a flyby on July 1, 1770. The next such occurrence took place nearly 400 years earlier. 

The data from the historic comet flyby could reveal many important details about the universe and astronomers took advantage of the once in a lifetime occurrence. In a media release, Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Shantanu Naidu said:

"We were able to obtain very detailed radar images of the comet nucleus over three nights around the time of closest approach. We can see surface features as small as 8 meters per pixel."

NASA scientists used the images to calculate the comet's diameter which was revealed to be about 3,000 feet (1 kilometer). The comet has an irregular, pear-like shape. As the flyby was close, the scientists were able to read the surface of the comet for flat regions and ridges, apart from its overall shape. Scientists also determined that P/2016 BA14 spun around its axis about every 35 to 40 hours.

Comet P/2016 BA14 is also called Comet Pan-STARRS (or Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) which detected it on January 21, 2016. The comet's orbit was similar to another comet known as 252P/LINEAR, hence scientists say that the twin comets may be two parts of a larger space object.