Some comets will pass by the earth every few years to say hello, but some orbits are extremely far away and will only enter the inner solar system once in tens of thousands of years. For example, comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) with a period of up to 50,000 years will pass by this month Earth.
Comets are small celestial bodies in the solar system with a wide range of orbital periods. They can be divided into short-period comets and long-period comets according to the length of their orbital periods. The former comes from the Kuiper belt, and its period is usually shorter than 200 years. The middle period is shorter than 20 years and has a low inclination ( No more than 30 degrees) are also known as Jupiter family comets, whose orbital period is between 20 and 200 years are called Halley family comets; long-period comets are believed to originate from the Oort cloud, and their periods can range from 200 to million years.
In early March 2022, scientists used the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) to discover a new long-period comet named C/2022 E3 (ZTF) with an orbital period of 50,000 years. After a journey of hundreds of billions of kilometers, the comet will reach its orbital perihelion on January 12, 2023.
There is always some risk in waiting for a comet to approach the sun to brighten. If it does not disintegrate, then the best time to observe comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) should be when it is about to leave the solar system. It is predicted that it will reach its brightest brightness around February 1 this year. It’s also the closest to Earth when it’s 2022, though C/2022 E3 (ZTF) won’t be particularly bright, and you might not be able to spot it without the help of binoculars.
If you want to watch the comet online, a live broadcast of a telescope in Italy will be broadcast live twice on January 13 (perihelion) and February 2 (flying over the earth).
Interestingly, some astronomers believe that C/2022 E3 (ZTF) may not continue to stay in its original orbit after this visit; in other words, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will not return to the inner solar system again after 50,000 years, and It is flying into the depths of space, away from us.
(First image source: NASA)
