OR comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) it will make its closest approach to the Sun on January 12, getting closest to the Earth in early February, when it can reach sixth magnitude, becoming visible to us through binoculars. The problem is, we won’t be able to see it in the Southern Hemisphere.
Discovered in March 2022, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) had an apparent magnitude of 17.3 at that time (much fainter than its current brightness of magnitude 6), about 4.3 AU (640 million km) from the sun .
After the discoveries, astronomers thought the object was an asteroid, but it didn’t take long for them to realize the coma (a kind of cloud of dust and gas that appears around the comet as it approaches the Sun) is highly condensed.
The most fascinating thing about C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is that it last walked in our neighborhood 50,000 years ago, in the Upper Paleolithic. This is about the time our ancestors began to organize themselves into the first settlements.
Such a delay in returning to the inner Solar System is due to the fact that this object comes from the mysterious Oort Cloud, a very large and very distant region, at the farthest reaches of the Solar System, well beyond the Kuiper Belt.
To get an idea of the distance of the Oort Cloud, the Voyager 1 probe, after a 45-year mission, reached interstellar space, but it will still take 300 years before reaching the inner edge of the cloud and another 30,000 years to get out of it. ring of giant icy rocks.
This comet also has an extremely elongated orbit, and since it has encountered the Sun very few times, its chemistry is likely almost intact since the formation of the Solar System.
After passing through the constellation Corona Borealis, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) began to “fly” towards Ursa Major, and in the coming days and weeks it will start picking up speed towards the Polar star. All these names are constellations and stars located near the north celestial pole, that is, not visible in the southern hemisphere.
Northern observers should take this opportunity if they want to see this Oort cloud object, as C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is not expected to return for another 50,000 years, or may never visit our vicinity again.
Now, in February 2023, when it will be closest to Earth, the comet will be about 43 million km away from us. Even residents of the northern hemisphere are unlikely to see anything spectacular, but a small blurry spot if they use binoculars or home telescopes.
Source: SkyatNight
