This comet is not expected to be as large as Comet Neowise in July 2020. However, you still have a chance to see a somewhat bright space tourist that will return in 50,000 years
What better way to usher in the new year than spotting a hopefully bright comet? It’s called Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) and it could put on quite a show in the northern sky throughout January.
This will be a great chance to test out that new set of binoculars or telescope you may have received for Christmas.
This ice mountain was discovered in March 2022 by the Wide Area Observation Camera operating at the Zwicky Transient Facility. At first, astronomers believed the small, distant object was an asteroid. However, it quickly brightened as it passed the planet Jupiter on its way to the inner solar system to circle the sun.
At this distance, the sun’s influence begins to react with the comet’s frozen elements, compounds, and water ice, causing it to sublimate from a solid into a gas. Now the comet begins to glow and in most cases forms an ion (gas) and sometimes even a dust tail. It was now classified as a comet.
The comet appears green in color and is the result of the decay of a reactive molecule called dicarbon and has only a weak ion tail. C/2022 is well positioned in the northern sky and visible throughout the night. It will be close to Polaris (North Star) at the end of January. Unlike a meteor, which moves for a fraction of a second as it evaporates in our atmosphere, comets are interstellar visitors that move slowly against the background of the stars from night to night and are millions of kilometers away.
C/2022 E3’s (ZTF) closest approach to the Sun, called perihelion, occurred on January 12 at a distance of 160 million kilometers. In the next few weeks, the comet will approach our planet (not directly). Its closest approach to the earth will occur on February 2 at a safe distance of 42 million kilometers.
There is a chart to find on my website: www.wondersofastronomy.com.
Comets are generally unpredictable. Although calculations suggest it will be visible in the dark countryside on a clear moonless night, it could easily disappear like Comet Kohoutek in 1973. It is expected to be the brightest comet of the 20th century and be named the “Comet of the Century ” , Kohoutek was bright, but much weaker than predicted. As my longtime friend and comet hunter David Levy says, “Comets are like cats: they have tails and do exactly what they want.”
Every year, amateur astronomers can observe a handful of comets, but only through telescopes because they are too faint to be seen just looking up. Let’s hope that C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will not disappoint you and allow you to see this particular visitor, who is believed to have last returned to our space forest around 50,000 years ago. This is the period of early Homo sapiens. Unfortunately, Neanderthals disappeared about 10,000 years after this comet’s last approach.
As the weeks go by, the moon will rise later and later and show less of its illuminated phase, meaning less glow in the sky. The new moon occurs on January 21. This comet is not expected to be as large as Comet Neowise in July 2020. However, you still have a chance to see a somewhat bright space tourist that will return in 50,000 years.
You can also try your hand at wide-angle astrophotography with a DSLR camera, a cable release and a sturdy tripod. If you don’t own an automated telescope, there are good tracking cameras on the market that allow you to take long exposures of a minute or two and still have accurate stars. The colored comet will register on the camera’s CCD chip. Experiment with manual exposure settings, pixels are free after all.
clear sky,
Known as “The Backyard Astronomer,” Gary Boyle is an astronomy educator, guest speaker, monthly columnist for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, and a STEM educator. He has been interviewed on more than 55 Canadian radio stations, as well as on television in Canada and the US. In recognition of his public achievement in astronomy, the International Astronomical Union named him the asteroid (22406) Gariboyle. Follow him on Twitter: @astroeducator, Facebook and his website: www.wondersofastronomy.com
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