The year began with a rare treat for sky watchers: A newly discovered comet that may soon begin to glow.
On January 12, the comet – named C/2022 E3 (ZTF) – made its closest pass around the sun. It is now heading back into the solar system and swinging past Earth, making its closest approach on February 1.
Best of all, it’s a circumpolar comet and is visible high in the north, meaning Canada is in a perfect spot to spot it.
“Right now it’s certainly too faint to see with the naked eye,” said Paul Wiegert, a professor in Western University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. But he added: “It will get brighter as the end of the month approaches.”
No one can tell how bright they are: comets are extremely difficult to predict. Although we know about comets that appear regularly, called periodic comets – think about it Halley’s Comet, which orbits approximately once every 76 years — new ones are always being discovered, like comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF).
Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) was seen on January 3, appearing as a green fuzzy “star” above the semicircle of stars marking the constellation Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown. (Submitted by Alan Dyer/AmazingSky.co)
And since their brightness is hard to predict, that means anything can happen.
Take Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1), which was predicted to be the brightest comet of 2021. After all, the comet disintegrated as it passed the sun. Fortunately, however, Comet NEOWISE put on a great show later in the year.
C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is also a periodic comet. But if you miss it now, you’ll never see it: it orbits the sun once every 50,000 years.
The comet gets its name in part because Transit facility Zviki, which conducts wide-ranging surveys of the northern night sky every two days from San Diego’s Palomar Observatory. The facility discovered the comet in March 2022.
When and how to see it
As it begins to make its way toward its closest pass by Earth, the comet should begin to glow in our night sky. It is currently only visible with binoculars, but even finding it that way can be difficult.
“You’ll have no problem seeing it with binoculars. It’s certainly bright enough,” Wiegert said. “The tricky part with binoculars is always making sure you’re trying to point in the right direction, and that takes a bit of practice.”
As the comet moves across the stars from night to night, the best way to find it in your location is to use TheSkyLive.com. This site allows you to enter your location and then provides you with a wealth of information, including the comet’s brightness, the constellation it can be found in, and even provides a map of its location.
The comet is expected to increase in brightness over the next two weeks, but may not yet be bright enough to see without binoculars. It is currently magnitude 6.6 – the lower the number, the brighter the object – but astronomers hope that its brightness will increase. (To put this in perspective, the brightness of a full moon registers at approx with a magnitude of -12.6.)
(CBC News)
But if you have a clear evening, you can try to find the comet as it moves across the sky on subsequent nights — and even compare its brightness over the weeks.
And it’s probably a good idea to look for it days before its closest approach, since the moon will be almost completely illuminated on February 1.
Meanwhile, Wiegert, an astronomer and comet expert, is excited not only to see the comet, but to study it.
“Comets are essentially the remnants or constituents of the planets and the rest of our solar system,” he said. “The land is old and has been cultivated a lot over time.
“And so the analogy we sometimes use is that the Earth is like a chocolate cake: it doesn’t look much like the ingredients that originally went into it—the flour, the eggs, and so on—but if you’re interested in a chocolate cake, then you can interested in these ingredients.”
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