See once in a lifetime Green Comet (2/1)

Manuela López Restrepo, NPR.org, Feb. 1, 2023; CC Liu, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

For one night only! Meet C/2022 E3. (Her friends call her the green comet for short). Who is she? She's a potentially unprecedented celestial happening.

So trade in the typical evening blue light (screen) for some green light (real thinga0 instead. It's a connection to history and the galaxy that won't try to sell us anything.

C/2022 E3 is a comet marked by its bright green nucleus and long faint ion tail.

It was discovered in March 2022 and has been visible by telescope. But tonight, the comet is poised to be most visible to the naked eye in the northern hemisphere as it passes by.

This could be the first time ever (or at the very least in thousands of years) that the comet will cross paths with our earth. And we get to watch!

• Here’s a first effort at capturing the “Green Comet,” Comet c/2022 E3 (ZTF). This was a particular challenge due to humid conditions and clouds, but I’m thrilled I was able to capture it at all! pic.twitter.com/t2VGEnfKX8 — Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) January 19, 2023.

What's the big deal? We know very little about C/2022 E3, but it appears that its long orbit takes it from the outer expanses of the solar system and then in towards the sun, according to The Planetary Society. More