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Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which is due to pass by Earth on Wednesday, may have originated from a mysterious cloud at the edge of the solar system.
The comet, which may be faint to the unaided eye at night from dark sky locations, is now more than 27 million miles from Earth.
C/2022 E3 (ZTF) has already passed perihelion (the point closest to the Sun) and will reach its minimum distance from Earth on Wednesday before it flies out of the solar system completely.
A comet is a celestial body of frozen gas, dust, and rock that orbits the Sun. Sometimes called “cosmic snowballs,” these objects are bombarded with radiation and emit gas and debris as they get closer to our star.
This process forms a glowing atmosphere around the comet’s nucleus known as the coma (for C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which appears green), and two huge tails of gas and dust.
Astronomical modeling indicates that the comet is in a hyperbolic orbit (essentially an open orbit), meaning it may not return to the interior of the solar system.
Robert Massey, deputy secretary general of the Royal Astronomical Society, said, “The shape looks like a very open curve, and like all celestial bodies, it moves fast when it’s close to the sun and slow when it’s far from it. move,” he said. Newsweek.
Given that C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is a long-period comet (defined as having an orbital period greater than 200 years), astronomers believe it likely originated in the Oort cloud. I’m here. solar system.
“This is a very distant region of space that surrounds the Sun at a very great distance,” said Chris Pattison, senior research associate at the Institute for Cosmology and Gravity at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Newsweek.
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To understand how far apart this vast region is, it helps to think in astronomical units rather than miles or kilometers. One astronomical unit (AU) is roughly equivalent to the average distance between the Earth and the Sun (about 93 million miles).
According to NASA, the inner edge of the Oort Cloud is thought to begin 2,000 to 5,000 AU from the Sun, while the outer edge could extend up to 10,000 or 100,000 AU from our star. there is.
By comparison, the farthest point from the Sun in the orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto is only 50 AU. The Oort Cloud is so distant that even Voyager 1, the furthest man-made object from Earth, launched in 1977 and traveling about a million miles a day, took about 300 years to reach its inner boundary. Takes and probably another 30,000 to get to the other side.
Oort Kood was first identified in 1950 by Dutch astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort, which explained why new comets with elongated orbits through the solar system continue to be observed.
Scientists have yet to observe an object in the Oort cloud itself, so it remains a hypothetical concept for now. However, this region is thought to be the source of most long-period comets that pass through the Solar System because it is far enough from the Sun and cold enough for ice to remain solid.
It is estimated to contain billions, if not trillions, of ice objects. This region is loosely connected to the solar system, and its outer edge marks the extent of the Sun’s gravitational influence.
At times, objects in the Oort Cloud are scrambled toward the Sun, presumably by the gravitational influence of passing stars.
“The Oort Cloud is a huge reservoir of comets that surrounds everything else in the solar system, but from time to time it can send comets like C/2022 E3 (ZTF) in our direction,” said Pattison. said.
Astronomers believe the clouds are remnants of material left over from the formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.
As C/2022 E3 (ZTF) reaches its minimum distance from our planet, watch this potential visitor from the distant Oort Cloud pass us by online from the comfort of your own home can do.
The Virtual Telescope Project (VTP) is a service provided by the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Ceccano, Italy, that operates and delivers robotic telescopes.
The live feed is scheduled to start Wednesday at 11:00 PM ET or 8:00 PM PT. VTP captures images of comets zipping through space and shares them with viewers in real time.
Predicting the brightness of such objects is notoriously difficult, but the comet is expected to continue to brighten until its closest approach.
The comet’s currently observed magnitude is just below +6, which means it could theoretically be visible to the unaided eye under ideal conditions. Some observers have already reported seeing the comet with the naked eye from dark rural locations with little light pollution. It appears as a small, diffuse smudge.
However, in practice, it can be difficult to find on your own. Most people need the help of binoculars, telescopes and stargazing apps.
Do you have any tips for science talks? Newsweek Need to cover? Have a question about comets? Please let us know at science@newsweek.com.
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