The “green comet”, which has not visited us for 50,000 years, will be at its closest point to Earth on February 1. At 40 million kilometers, so barely visible to the naked eye, but enough to be observed with a simple pair of binoculars in the northern hemisphere.
Many now call it the “green comet” — rather than C/2022 E3 (ZTF)its real name — because of the greenish color given to it, in the photos, by the clouds of carbon gas which, due to the heat of the Sun, escape from its core.
She is already moving away from us
And it’s called C/2022 E3 (ZTF) because it’s the third comet discovered during the “E” period (the first half of March) of the year 2022, by an instrument called ZTF (Zwicky Transient Facility), installed at California’s Mount Palomar Observatory.
This camera has a wide enough field of view to survey the entire Northern Hemisphere sky every two days.
In March 2022, this comet was already closer to the Sun than Jupiter is (600 million km) and was 25,000 times less visible than the star least visible to the naked eye, had estimated at the era the ZTF team.