The Green Comet will pass Earth for the first time since Neanderthals roamed the Earth
A green comet discovered last March will make its mark closest approach to Earth this month
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was first discovered by astronomers using the Wide Field Survey Camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility in California.
It was already inside Jupiter’s orbit.
Since then, it has brightened substantially and is sweeping the northern constellation Corona Borealis in the pre-dawn skies, according to NASA.
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Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered by astronomers using the Wide Field Survey Camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility this year in early March.
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The agency notes that it is still too dark to see without a telescope, although an image from December reveals its bright coma, short, broad dust tail, and faint ion tail.
The comet will be at perihelionclosest to the sun on January 12 and closest to Earth on February 1.
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On a journey through the inner solar system, comet 2022 E3 will be at perihelion, closest to the sun, on January 12 and at perigee, closest to our fair planet, on February 1.
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NASA notes that the brightness of comets is unpredictable, but that by then C/2022 E3 (ZTF) it could only be visible to the eye in the night sky.
“Northern Hemisphere observers will find the comet in the morning sky as it moves rapidly northwest during January (it will become visible in the Southern Hemisphere in early February),” he said.
This comet is not expected to be as spectacular as Comet NEOWISE in 2020.
Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) on July 27, 2020, from the Columbia Icefields (Jasper National Park, Alberta) from the Toe of the Glacier parking lot, looking north over Sunwapta Lake, formed by the summer meltwater of the Athabasca Glacier.
((Photo by: Alan Dyer/VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty)
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It has a complete orbit of about 50,000 years, they say NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratorymeaning that the last time it came this close to Earth was when Neanderthals roamed the planet.
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