Comet “C/2022 E3 (ZTF)” will cross Earth’s sky again after doing so 50,000 years ago, and could even be seen with the naked eye at the end of January, specialists said.
It is a small rocky and frozen body, coming from the confines of the solar system, with a diameter of just 1 kilometer. It was discovered in March 2022 by the “Zwicky Transient Facility” (ZTF) program, which operates the Samuel-Oschin telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California.
According to the AFP news agency, the body was detected when it passed through the orbit of Jupiter, and this week it will pass close to the Sun. It will reach its perihelion, that is, the closest point to the “king star”, on January 12, according to the astronomers who were able to calculate its trajectory. after months of observation.
When a comet approaches the Sun, the ice that contains its nucleus turns into a gaseous state and releases a long tail that reflects the light of the fiery star. This bright trail is what will be visible from Earth, initially in the northern hemisphere, as “C/2022 E3 (ZTF)” gets closer.
The comet will shine in all its splendor “when it is closest to Earth”, explained Thomas Prince, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, who works for ZTF. However, it will be less spectacular than Hale-Bopp (1997) or Neowise (2020), which were much larger.
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When will be the best time to observe the comet?
As the astronomers pointed out, with a good pair of glasses, or even with the naked eye, the comet can be glimpsed at night, provided that the sky is clear, there is no light pollution and the moonlight does not disturb.
“Maybe we’re lucky and it will be twice as bright as expected,” ventured astrophysicist Nicolas Biver, from the Paris Observatory-PSL.
As reported by AFP, the best observation window will be the weekend of January 21 and 22, and the following week.
During that period it will pass between the constellations Ursa Minor and Ursa Major. Later it will be able to be seen in the southern hemisphere, to then spread towards the ends of the solar system, where it was probably born.
50,000 years ago, “C/2022 E3 (ZTF)” already visited the inner solar system and passed close to Earth. This time it will probably “get out of the solar system once and for all,” Biver said.
Scientists hope to learn a little more about the composition of comets, in particular thanks to the powerful James Webb Space Telescope.
“We are going to observe it everywhere. It is not the comet of the century, but we are happy to be able to observe comets like this every one or two years, because we consider them to be vestiges of the formation of the solar system,” explained the astrophysicist.
Source: Telam