Hello my astrophiles out there, I have news to share. On January 12th that means today a rare, green comet will appear in our night sky. Its name is C/2022 E3 and was discovered last year by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility’s wide-field survey camera at the Palomar Observatory when it was inside the orbit of Jupiter. The comet will be closest to the Sun or in other terms will reach perihelion today.
Comets are the leftovers from the formation of Solar System made up of water ice and organic compounds. They are found in Kuiper Belt but the comets with the long period comes from the outermost part of the solar system called Oort Cloud. According to NASA, the comet will be visible to stargazers in the Northern hemisphere and those in the southern hemisphere should be able to view it in February. So get your binoculars ready to see this once in a lifetime comet because It is believed that the comet hasn’t visited our solar system since the last ice age around 50,000 years ago. It is possible that this comet may become visible to the unaided eyes under dark skies.
The green color of the comet comes from the emission lines of excited atoms of carbon and hydroxide ion.The comet will be visible in our skies for a month and will make its closes pass of Earth between February 1st and 2nd at around 26 million miles away. Observers will be able to spot it near the North star.