A distant comet will soon be visible to the naked eye for the first time in 50,000 years
Comet “C/2022 E3 (ZTF)” will pass close to the Sun this week after traveling through the icy expanses at the outskirts of our solar system. The best viewing window should be the weekend of January 21-22 and the week after.
January 6, 2023. Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is now passing through our solar system for the first time in 50,000 years and will be visible to the naked eye in the coming weeks. It will reach its closest point to the Sun on January 12 and pass closest to Earth on February 1. Dan Barlett/NASA/AFP
By Le Parisien with AFP
January 7, 2023, 10:26
His last visit was 50,000 years ago. Comet "C/2022 E3 (ZTF)" from the fringes of the solar system will pass close to the Sun this week and will be visible to the naked eye in late January. It was discovered recently. In March 2022, the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) astronomical sky survey program spotted a small, rocky, icy object estimated to be about 1 km in diameter, thanks to the Samuel-Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory, California.
The comet, detected while passing through Jupiter's orbit, is now heading towards the Sun and will reach its perihelion point, or closest point to the Sun, on January 12, according to astronomers' calculations. Nicolas Biver of the Paris-PSL Observatory states that in this case, the celestial body would be "10% farther" from the Sun than Earth is (about 150 million km).