A bright green comet is set to pass by Earth’s outer space for the first time in 50,000 years…
The celestial visitor was first spotted in March 2022 while it was inside the orbit of Jupiter.
The comet will appear like a faint, greenish object in the sky and if it is viewed through the telescope the tail of the comet will be seen. This celestial object, according to NASA it is making its closest approach to earth on 2 February, just around 42 million Km
Discovery
On March 2, 2022 astronomers Frank Masci and Bryce Bolin using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at the Palomar Observatory in Southern California, came across an object which they initially identified as an asteroid.
It appeared very dim nearly 25,000 times fainter than stars that the human eye can detect. Later it was revealed that this star-like object possessed a very tightly condensed coma, indicating that it was a comet. At the time, the comet was situated 643 million km from the Sun, just inside the orbit of the planet Jupiter.
Structure
Comets are composed primarily of frozen gases that are heated as they approach the sun and glow by the sun’s light, this cloud of gas is the head or coma of the comet. As the gases warm and expand, particles of dust that are released into space forming the tail of the Comet
Comets generally throw off two types of tails; tails composed primarily of gas, and tails composed primarily of dust. Dust tails are far brighter and more spectacular to the eye than gas tails
This comet is made of ice and dust and emits a greenish aura, with a kilometre-wide diameter will be visible to the naked eye, prior to this comet Neowise was spotted in March 2020 and the grand Hale-Bopp comet in 1997
This comet is believed to have come from the Oort Cloud, a theorised vast sphere surrounding the solar system that is home to mysterious icy objects. The last time this comet passed Earth was during the Upper Paleolithic period, when Neanderthals still roamed Earth.
Rare Opportunity
The comet is estimated to have an orbital period of roughly 50,000 years. Its last passage through the inner solar system apparently came during the Upper Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It means that if at all it was spotted by anybody from the earth, it would be the Neanderthals
The special fact about this comet is that, it has a parabolic orbit which means that the chances of its return are very rare or never again… which makes it more significant to see this comet perhaps for the first and last time….
The best opportunity to locate the comet in the sky will be on 9-10 Feb, when it passes close to Mars however will depend on a variety of factors including location and light pollution from both natural and artificial sources
A close study of this rare visitor may give the information about our solar system well beyond most of the distant planets.
-Dr Siddhivinayak Barve
Editor, ScienceNow Digital
