Green Comet May Be Visible Through February 9th

A recently discovered comet is now passing through the inner solar system and should be visible with a telescope and possibly even binoculars. The comet, dubbed C/2022 E3 (ZTF) – was first sighted in March last year, when it was already inside the orbit of Jupiter. It made its closest approach to the Sun on January 12 and then passed closest to Earth on February 2.

This is the first time this comet has made a pass by earth in 50,000 years, and it’s worth spotting. It has a bright green glow. Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but if this one continues its current trend in brightness, it’ll be easy to spot with binoculars, and it’s possible it could become visible to the unaided eye under dark skies.

Comets hang out just outside the solar system and are mostly made of frozen gas, dust and rock. Some exist in a wide disk beyond the orbit of Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. Other comets live in the Oort Cloud, the sphere-shaped, outer edge of the solar system that is about 50 times farther away from the Sun than the Kuiper Belt. The comet with the longest known orbit takes more than 250,000 years to make just one trip around the Sun.

Gravity from other celestial objects, like planets and stars, can pull comets out of these far reaches of the solar system. As the redirected comet passes closer to the sun, it heats up, causing a trail of debris to stream behind it. This is the tail of the comet. This reflects the light of the sun and makes the comet appear like bright streak in the night sky.

NASA’s Stardust mission collected samples from Comet Wild 2 and brought them back to Earth. Scientists found those particles to be rich in hydrocarbons, which are chemicals considered the “building blocks” of life.

Rosetta, a mission of the European Space Agency that had several NASA instruments onboard, studied Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta dropped a lander on the nucleus, then orbited the comet for two years. Rosetta detected building blocks of life on this comet, too. And images showed Comet 67P to be a rugged object with lots of activity shaping its surface.

—With Contributions from Nasa