The Russian “TASS” agency, speaking on behalf of the Moscow Planetarium, reported that the comet C / 2022 E3, discovered last March, will approach the earth on February 1 to the lowest distance from it, but it will not collide with the earth, and it can be seen with the naked eye.
The chief researcher at the Russian State Institute for Astronomy, Vladimir Sordin, said that the comet’s distance from Earth, the moment it approaches it, will be 100 times greater than the distance separating the moon from it.
According to Sordin, a distance of 42 million kilometers will separate the Earth from the comet on February 1, when the comet will approach the Earth to its closest extent.
It is difficult to predict now the intensity of the comet’s luminosity at the time of its approach to Earth. While it can be assumed that its luminosity will be +5 – +4 of the stellar value.
As for the length of its gaseous tail, it will be the size of the hopper of the constellation Ursa Major, which means that it will be visible to the naked eye in the absence of urban lighting.
It is noteworthy that the comet C / 2022 E3 helped astronomers in 2022 take photographs of a previously unknown celestial body.
Since then, the comet has been classified as a long-period comet, which has increased in brightness significantly, and is traveling along the constellation Bootes in the northern hemisphere. And at the present time it can be spotted in the sky by an observatory before dawn as a pale point.
