It is not uncommon for stargazers to see a comet with the naked eye.
But by the end of this month – or possibly early February – a newly discovered space rock will swoop past our planet and light up the night sky.
C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered while inside in March last year. JupiterIt will enter orbit and make its closest approach to the sun on January 12 and to Earth on February 2.
Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but if this comet continues its current trend in brightness, it will be easy to spot with binoculars or a telescope.
Check out this month! Discovered while orbiting Jupiter in March last year, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will make its closest approach to the sun on January 12 and to Earth on February 2.
Even better, it can even be seen with the naked eye if it gets dark towards the end of the month.
If that’s the case, it will be the first comet visible to the naked eye since NEOWISE sped past Earth in 2020, but not as spectacular.
NEOWISE will leave a long, hazy tail, while E3 will likely appear as a gray streak or speck in the night sky.
But neither matches the brilliance of Hale-Bopp, which was widely seen in 1997.
Astronomers do not expect Comet C/2022 E3, which was last seen during the Ice Age, to visit Earth for at least another 50,000 years.
In terms of crossing our planet, it won’t be close by any means. In fact, its closest approach to Earth will be 26.4 million miles (42.5 million kilometers) on February 2.
Northern Hemisphere observers will find the comet in the morning sky as it moves rapidly from northeast to northwest in January and passes between the Small Dipper and the Big Dipper.
“This comet is not expected to be a showpiece like Comet NEOWISE is in 2020,” Preston Dyches of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a video shared by the US space agency.
“But it’s still a great opportunity to make a personal connection with an icy visitor from the distant outer solar system.”
Stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere will have to wait a little longer to catch a snapshot, as Comet C/2022 E3 won’t be visible for them until early February.
In March 2022, astronomers discovered the new space rock using the wide-field survey camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility in California.
Since then, the new long-period comet has brightened significantly and is now moving through the northern constellation Corona Borealis in the predawn sky.
Late last year, scientists took the first detailed photograph revealing the brighter greenish coma and yellowish dust tail of the new Comet C/2022 E3.
Comets are composed of ice, gas, and rock, often described as giant space icebergs originating from the outer solar system and moving in an elongated orbit.
Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but if this comet continues its current trend in brightness, it will be easy to spot with binoculars or a telescope.
Northern Hemisphere observers will find the comet in the morning sky as it moves rapidly from northeast to northwest during January and passes between the Small Dipper and the Big Dipper.
In March 2022, astronomers discovered the new space rock using the wide-field survey camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility in California. Pictured here, in the center of this image
The other type of large space rock, called asteroids, tend to be made of metal or rock and can come from anywhere in the solar system, including a large group of asteroids located between Mars and Jupiter.
Comet Neowise was first spotted and named after NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) space telescope in March 2020.
The icy object briefly became visible from the Earth’s surface from the northern hemisphere in the summer of that year, as its proximity to the sun caused it to melt and then release tails of dust and gas.
At its closest approach on July 23, 2020, it was still 64 million miles from the planet.
It then returned to space at about 144,000 miles per hour and will not return for about 7,000 years.
The comet reaches the sun this month before orbiting and making its closest approach to Earth.
Comet NEOWISE is pictured over Lebanon in an image shared by NASA in 2020.
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