In treat for skygazers, a rare green comet to make closest pass by Earth tomorrow

Washington, Jan 31: Skygazers are in for a rare treat in coming days as a rare green-hued comet is expected to be the most visible as it passes Earth for the first time in about 50,000 years.

According to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the comet had visited Earth during Neanderthal times. It will come within 26 million miles (42 million kilometres) and will make its closest pass of Earth on Wednesday before speeding away again, unlikely to return for millions of years.

The Southern Hemisphere people will get a glimpse of the comet named C/2022 E3 (ZTF) this week if the skies are clear. So far, this harmless green comet already is visible in the northern night sky with binoculars and small telescopes, and possibly the naked eye in the darkest corners of the Northern Hemisphere.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered by astronomers using the wide-field survey camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility this year in early March, 2022. Since then the new long-period comet has brightened substantially. It's still too dim to see without a telescope though. The telescopic image from December 19 does show the comet's brighter greenish coma, short broad dust tail, and long faint ion tail stretching across a 2.5 degree wide field-of-view. On a voyage through the inner Solar System comet 2022 E3 will be at perihelion, its closest to the Sun, in the new year on January 12 and at perigee, its closest to our fair planet, on February 1. The brightness of comets is notoriously unpredictable, but by then C/2022 E3 (ZTF) could become only just visible to the eye in dark night skies.

"Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but if this one continues its current trend in brightness, it'll be easy to spot with binoculars, and it's just possible it could become visible to the unaided eye under dark skies," NASA wrote in its "What's Up" blog.