A comet that appears every 50,000 years will cross the Earth in January 2023

Liputan6.com, Jakarta – Fans of phenomena occurring in the sky will be able to witness rare things on the moon January 2023. The reason is that a comet that is only seen once every 50,000 years will pass close to Earth.

To collect Digital Trends, Tuesday (10/1/2023), the comet in question is called C/2022 E3 ZTF. This comet will make its closest approach to Earth in the coming weeks.

Interesting, when rare comet flashed, it was likely that it could be seen with the naked eye.

just for information, comet C/2022 E3 ZTF first discovered in March 2022 at the Zwicky Transient Facility, thus the name ZTF was chosen as the last name. This comet was detected when it was nearly 400 million miles from the Sun.

Unlike asteroids which are made of rock, comets are mostly made of ice. As you approach the sun where the temperature is warmest, this ice will melt and release gas. This process forms the comet’s characteristic tail.

Comet such long periods have very eccentric orbits and are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, a cloud far from the icy body that orbits the Sun, beyond the Kuiper belt.

video-gallery--item__video-caption_read-video-article">Originally the object believed to strike Jupiter was a comet. But since there are more asteroids, it is strongly suspected that the objects that hit Jupiter were asteroids.