A green comet was discovered last March Closest approach to Earth This month.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was first detected by astronomers using the Wide Field Survey Camera at California’s Zwicky Transit Facility.
It was already inside Jupiter’s orbit.
Since then, it has brightened dramatically as it sweeps across the northern constellation Corona Borealis in the predawn sky, according to NASA.
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It’s still too dim to see without a telescope, the agency notes — although an image from December reveals a bright coma, a short broad dust tail, and a faint ion tail.
The culprit will be in the gutterclosest to the Sun, on January 12, and at its closest point to Earth 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 can become visible to the eye only in the night sky.
She added, “Observers in the northern hemisphere will find the comet in the morning sky, as it moves rapidly northwestward during January (it will become visible in the southern hemisphere in early February).”
This comet is not expected to be as visible as Comet NEOES in 2020.
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Its full orbit is about 50,000 years old, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion LaboratoryThis means that the last time he approached Earth was when Neanderthals roamed the planet.