Earth will be visited by a comet named C/2022 E3 (ZTF)newly discovered and may be bright enough to be seen with the naked eye in early February in the southern hemispherer.
According to the report published on the website of Space, the celestial body is currently passing through the inner solar system and will make its closest approach to the Sun on January 12. Later, It will pass through our planet between the 1st and 2nd of next month.
According to NASA, observers in the Northern Hemisphere will be able to spot the comet in the morning sky as it moves in a northwesterly direction during January. Also, if C/2022 E3 (ZTF) continues to shine as it currently does, it could be visible to the naked eye in dark skies.
Observers should look for the comet when the Moon is dark in the sky, right on January 21 weather permitting, and when it is in the constellation Camelopardalis.
A comet that did not come from the Neanderthals
According to him Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA, the comet has a period of about 50,000 years. This means that before reaching about 100 million miles from the Sun on January 12 and 26 million miles from Earth on February 2, the last time it was this close was during the Upper Paleolithic of the planet.
The last humans who could have seen C/2022 E3 (ZTF) were the first living Homo sapiens during the last glacial period or “ice age”. they could say the same some of the last neanderthals, since that species became extinct about 10,000 years after the last perihelion of the comet.
Of course, Neanderthals and early humans did not know what C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was, so the comet was identified much more recently by the Wide Field Survey Camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility in early March 2022.
The NASA graphic below shows the orbital path of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) at its closest approach.
Current images of C/2022 E3 (ZTF) show its coma, an encircling halo of gas and dust, glowing greenish and a long but wispy comet tail extending from its main body.
