Fifty thousand years later, a “green comet” will once again pass close to planet Earth. Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered in March last year by the Zwicky Transient Facility Wide Field Camera at the Palomar Observatory in California.
“The comet has a long orbit that passes through the far reaches of the solar system. It will be closest to Earth on February 1, at a distance of about 42 million kilometers. In the weeks before its closest approach, may be visible to the naked eye or with binoculars,” explains the Planetary Society.
This “green comet” will be visible in the northern hemisphere through a telescope, “but as it gets closer to Earth, it is expected to become brighter and easier to observe.”
The green color in comets is not unusual. According to the BBCit is the result of “the rupture of a reactive molecule called dicarbon”, that is to say, “two carbon atoms joined by a double bond”.
To observe this comet, the Planetary Society advises “looking north at the skies just after sunset.”
“Without a telescope, Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) will likely look like a faint greenish blob in the sky rather than a bright object, and it probably won’t have the dramatic, visible tail that we saw on Comet NEOWISE in 2020. But it’s This particular comet is worth taking a look at, because it takes about 50,000 years to orbit the Sun, so the chance to see it will only come once in a lifetime.”
To the BBC, the chief executive of the Royal Society of Astronomy says it will be difficult to see the comet with the naked eye. However, far from light pollution, in dark skies and with the help of binoculars, “it will be possible to find it.”
Source: TSF
