New NewsInternational – This spectacular image shows the moment a green comet tail that had not been seen since the Ice Age appeared to break up in the night sky.
Reported from Dailymail.co.uk on January 25, Astronomers predicted the space rock, which will be visible to many stargazers on Earth next month, underwent a ‘disconnect’ event caused by turbulent space weather.
This effectively means the weakening of the comet’s tail making it look like it’s breaking off.
Experts at SpaceWeather.com said the disturbance was likely caused by a stronger-than-usual solar wind released during the recent coronal mass ejection (CME) from our sun.
Astronomers suspect the space rock experienced a ‘disconnect’ event caused by volatile space weather
“A piece of Comet ZTF’s tail has been squashed and carried away by the solar wind,” wrote SpaceWeather.com.
“CMEs hitting comets can cause a magnetic reconnection in the comet’s tail, sometimes tearing it completely.”
CMEs are large clouds of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun’s upper atmosphere, the corona, before crossing the solar system and disrupting the atmospheres of planets and other bodies such as comets.
SpaceWeather.com adds that the comet’s close approach to Earth coincides with a spike in activity on the sun’s surface, with several CMEs brushing past space rocks this month.
That might not be the end either.
There are currently eight sunspots crossing the Earth-facing disk, according to the Met Office, so more CMEs can affect comets as they approach us.
That’s because these sunspots display a twisted, dense magnetic field, which gives rise to solar flares and CMEs.
The image was taken by Austrian astrophotographer Michael Jäger, who drove 500 miles (800 km) from his home to Bavaria in Germany to get a clear view of the night sky.
He shared his Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) photo on Twitter.
The ‘once in a generation’ space rock was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at the Palomar Observatory in California in March last year while in Jupiter’s orbit.
In terms of passing by our planet, it will not come close at all. In fact, its closest approach to Earth was 26.4 million miles (42.5 million kilometers) on February 2.
But astronomers predict Comet C/2022 E3 will not visit Earth again for at least another 50,000 years, as it was last seen during the Ice Age.
Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but if this one continues its current brightness trend, it should be easy to spot with binoculars or a telescope.
Better yet, it can even be seen with the naked eye if the sky darkens towards the end of the month.
If so, it will be the first comet visible to the naked eye since NEOWISE raced past Earth in 2020, though it won’t be as spectacular.
NEOWISE leaves behind a long, hazy tail, whereas E3 will most likely appear as a gray streak or smudge in the night sky.
Comet NEOWISE is pictured over Lebanon in this image shared by NASA in 2020
None, however, matched the brightness of Hale-Bopp, which was seen widely in 1997.
Observers in the Northern Hemisphere will spot the comet in the morning sky, as it moves rapidly from northeast to northwest and passes between the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper during January.
Comets are composed of rock covered in ice, methane, and other compounds, and have orbits that take them farther from the solar system than any other space rock.
Their tails are made of evaporating material and dust ejected by comets as they heat up close to the sun.
This is what makes them so spectacular to photograph, because while the space rocks themselves are usually no more than a few miles wide, their tails can sometimes extend for hundreds of thousands of miles.
