Find out how to see the rare green comet passing by the Earth this Thursday (1st)

As for the he reported, a major astronomical event promises to rock the skies in February. The newly discovered comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will pass closest to Earth on Thursday (1st), but will be visible throughout the month.

Named a “green comet” after a chemical reaction that emits a greenish glow around the cosmic cannonball, the celestial body was first seen in March 2022, arriving towards Earth from the Oort Cloud, a set of icy objects in the outer solar system.

The observation of C/2022 E3 (ZTF) has everything to be a very special time, mainly due to its long solar orbit period. According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), this path takes about 50,000 years, so the last time it passed this close to Earth was in the Upper Paleolithic.

This means that the last opportunity humans had to observe it was during the last ice age. At the time, the last Neanderthals were still alive, having died out about 10,000 years after the last perigee, when the first homo sapiens were emerging.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was detected by a research camera on the Zwicky Transient Facility (something like Zwicky Transient Facility, in Portuguese). When it was still close to Jupiter, researchers believed it was an asteroid in the planet’s orbit, but it soon began to shine showing it was a comet.

We asked astronomer Marcelo Zurita, president of the Associação Paraibana de Astronomia (APA), member of the Brazilian Astronomical Society (SAB), technical director of the Brazilian Meteor Observation Network (BRAMON), and columnist for inform comet viewing guidelines for a capital city in each region of Brazil: Fortaleza (northeast), Boa Vista (north), Brasilia (midwest), São Paulo (southeast), and Porto Alegre ( south).

In and around this city, comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will already be visible on Tuesday night (31). It should reach just over 16° above the northern horizon on Wednesday.

As in the northeastern region, the comet will already be visible to the northern states from tonight on, when it reaches 10º elevation above the northern horizon. It is expected to exceed 17° elevation on Wednesday.

In the country’s capital, the comet will reach just over 4° elevation on the northern horizon on Wednesday, making it virtually impossible to see, even with binoculars or a telescope. The chances will be greater from 2, when the star should already reach 10° in elevation.

No chance for observers located in and around São Paulo to see the comet on the 1st, as it will be below the horizon. The next day it will still be too low to observe. On Friday (3), when it should reach almost 9º above the horizon, perhaps the comet can be seen depending on its brightness. “But, surely, the best will be from Saturday (4), when it should pass 14° to the north”, underlines Zurita.

According to Zurita, for Porto Alegre and the southern region, the comet will be best observed starting Sunday night (5), when it should reach 13º elevation in a northerly direction and will be easily positioned next to the star Capela, the brightest in this direction from the sky.

Saturday 11 February, from 19:00 (times based on Brasilia time zone), the National Observatory will hold a new edition of the virtual sky observation event “The sky at your home: remote observation”.

In the live broadcast, amateur astronomers and professional project partners will show images of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF).

already the Virtual Telescope Project (Virtual Telescope Project), a service provided by the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory, based in Rome, Italy, scheduled yours inhabit for this Friday (3), from 1:00 (from Thursday to Friday).

The post Knowing how to see the rare green comet passing by the Earth this Thursday (1st) first appeared on Olhar Digital.

Source: Olhar Digital