C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered on March 2, 2022 by the 1.2-m Schmidt Telescope at the Palomar Mountain Observatory (California, USA).
The acronym ZTF comes from the observing program, the "Zwicky Transient Facility", which monitors fast asteroid or comet-like objects in our solar system.
At the time of its discovery, the comet had a magnitude of 17. The lack of a coma initially led to its identification as an asteroid, but further observations revealed its cometary nature.
The orbit elements currently known allow to calculate that it made a last passage 50 000 years ago (± 3 000 years). And that its current passage will provide it an energy of movement which will make it leave our solar system after this passage in 2023.
In the past, it was stored, like billions of other comet nuclei, in the Oort cloud, at the edge of the Solar System, at about 1 light-year from the Sun.
| Landmarks In March 2022, at the time of its discovery, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) had just crossed the orbit of Jupiter and was approaching the Sun. It was then 4.3 astronomical units from our star. On January 12, 2023 at 7 p.m. (UT), it passed perihelion, the point in its orbit closest to the Sun. It was now only 1.11 astronomical units from the latter. Its magnitude was then around 7. As it moves away from the Sun, it has the good taste to approach the Earth February 1st, 2023 at 6 p.m. (UT), it was closest to Earth (at perigee), only 42.5 million kilometers away. Its magnitude then oscillated between 4 and 5. On the night of February 5 to 6, 2023, it passes very close to the star Capella in the constellation Coachman. On the night of February 10 to 11, 2023, it crosses the planet Mars, at about 2 degrees. February 14, 2023, she visits the open Hyades cluster, brushing past the star Aldebaran. |
From 1st February 2023, it should theoretically be visible to the naked eye. However, located on that day between the Pole star and the Capella star, it is close to the Moon (located in Gemini) ; the latter, full on February 5, 2023, will make this observation quite difficult.
It is thus advised to wait until the Moon decreases and moves away from the comet.
Read the rest of the article
in the IMCCE Newsletter of February 2023.
To learn more about comets }
The virtual exhibition "Comets : from myth to reality" : Find there for example comets remarkable for their historical importance, like Halley’s comet, because they have been studied a lot or because they have particular properties.
