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How To See The Green Comet

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  • The green comet is visible in the night sky now.
  • It’s best viewed in the early-morning hours.
  • Binoculars or a small telescope are recommended.

A green comet is speeding past Earth right now – here are some things to know about it.

W​hen To See It

I​t’s visible in the night sky through the middle of February, depending on conditions in your area – including, weather, cloud cover and light pollution. Astronomers say the best time to look is in the predawn hours and under the darkest conditions possible.

The green comet’s closest approach to Earth, also known as perigee, is overnight Wednesday into Thursday, when it will pass within about 28,000 miles.

Where To See It

T​he green comet is generally visible in the northern sky through early February. Look for the North Star, or Polaris, for a general idea of how to spot it. By Feb. 10, it will have moved farther east and Mars will be a good reference point for viewing, according to Space.com.

N​ight sky and stargazing apps will also be helpful in pinpointing it, and w​ebsite The Sky Live has a daily guide to viewing the green comet.

This photo provided by Dan Bartlett shows comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on Dec. 19, 2022. It last visited during Neanderthal times, according to NASA. It is expected to come within 26 million miles (42 million kilometers) of Earth on Feb. 1, 2023, before speeding away again, unlikely to return for millions of years.

(Dan Bartlett via AP)

H​ow To See It

W​hile it might be visible with the naked eye under perfect conditions and at the right time, astronomers say binoculars or a small telescope will greatly raise the odds of spotting the green comet as it zooms past Earth at speeds of about 128,500 mph.

I​f you don’t want to take your chances, a live stream of the green comet’s closest approach will be broadcast by the Virtual Telescope Program starting at 11 p.m. ET Wednesday.

Why Is It Green?

Scientists say c​arbon in the gas cloud around the comet’s nucleus makes it appear green, hence its nickname. The nucleus is about a mile across, while the green comet’s tails extend millions of miles, according to the Associated Press.

D​espite its green glow, the comet isn’t expected to be nearly as bright as 2020’s Neowise.

What’s All The Fuss About?

O​ne reason the green comet is getting so much attention is because the last time it cruised through Earth’s neighborhood was some 50,000 years ago – when the planet was in the midst of the last ice age.

I​t’s what’s known as a long-period comet because of the amount of time it takes to orbit the sun.

“Comets such as this are messengers from the outermost reaches of our solar system, taking tens of thousands of years to make their way into our vicinity,” CalTech astronomer Tom Prince told Space.com.

T​he green comet’s official name is C/2022 E3 (ZTF).

Want To Know More?

Join us live on Facebook Tuesday at noon ET. Astronomer and director of the University of New Hampshire Observatory, John Gianforte, will share his video and photos of the comet, give you tips on how to see it for yourself, and answer any questions.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

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Science

Green comet zooming our way, last visited 50,000 years ago

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A comet is streaking back our way after 50,000 years.

The dirty snowball last visited during Neanderthal times, according to NASA. It will come within 26 million miles (42 million kilometers) of Earth Wednesday before speeding away again, unlikely to return for millions of years.

So do look up, contrary to the title of the killer-comet movie “Don’t Look Up.”

Discovered less than a year ago, this harmless green comet already is visible in the northern night sky with binoculars and small telescopes, and possibly the naked eye in the darkest corners of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s expected to brighten as it draws closer and rises higher over the horizon through the end of January, best seen in the predawn hours. By Feb. 10, it will be near Mars, a good landmark.

Skygazers in the Southern Hemisphere will have to wait until next month for a glimpse.

While plenty of comets have graced the sky over the past year, “this one seems probably a little bit bigger and therefore a little bit brighter and it’s coming a little bit closer to the Earth’s orbit,” said NASA’s comet and asteroid-tracking guru, Paul Chodas.

Green from all the carbon in the gas cloud, or coma, surrounding the nucleus, this long-period comet was discovered last March by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility, a wide field camera at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory. That explains its official, cumbersome name: comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF).

On Wednesday, it will hurtle between the orbits of Earth and Mars at a relative speed of 128,500 mph (207,000 kilometers). Its nucleus is thought to be about a mile (1.6 kilometers) across, with its tails extending millions of miles (kilometers).

The comet isn’t expected to be nearly as bright as Neowise in 2020, or Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the mid to late 1990s.

But “it will be bright by virtue of its close Earth passage … which allows scientists to do more experiments and the public to be able to see a beautiful comet,” University of Hawaii astronomer Karen Meech said in an email.

Scientists are confident in their orbital calculations putting the comet’s last swing through the solar system’s planetary neighborhood at 50,000 years ago. But they don’t know how close it came to Earth or whether it was even visible to the Neanderthals, said Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

When it returns, though, is tougher to judge.

Every time the comet skirts the sun and planets, their gravitational tugs alter the iceball’s path ever so slightly, leading to major course changes over time. Another wild card: jets of dust and gas streaming off the comet as it heats up near the sun.

“We don’t really know exactly how much they are pushing this comet around,” Chodas said.

The comet — a time capsule from the emerging solar system 4.5 billion years ago — came from what’s known as the Oort Cloud well beyond Pluto. This deep-freeze haven for comets is believed to stretch more than one-quarter of the way to the next star.

While comet ZTF originated in our solar system, we can’t be sure it will stay there, Chodas said. If it gets booted out of the solar system, it will never return, he added.

Don’t fret if you miss it.

“In the comet business, you just wait for the next one because there are dozens of these,” Chodas said. “And the next one might be bigger, might be brighter, might be closer.”

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Green comet flies over Bay Area

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A rare green comet is passing through our solar system for the first time in 50,000 years, and over the weekend, Bay Area stargazers could have the best chance of spotting it in the night sky. 

Dubbed C/2022 E3 (ZTF), the comet was first discovered in Jupiter’s orbit last March by astronomers Frank Masci and Bryce Bolin at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, and named after the Zwicky Transient Facility where it was identified. The comet made its closest approach to the sun on Jan. 12, and is now on a path that will bring it closest to Earth — about 27 million miles away — on Feb. 2.

Paul Lynam, an astronomer at the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, told SFGATE it’s unlikely that anyone in the Bay Area will be able to see the comet with the naked eye due to light pollution, so a backyard telescope — or ideally, a small pair of binoculars, which offer a wider field of view — will come in handy. 

Lynam witnessed the comet from the observatory at about 9 p.m. on Wednesday night, and recommends that people look for it by scanning the northeastern night sky between the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper.

“What I noticed with a cheap pair of binoculars was an extended, diffused object that was more spread out than a star, and slightly brighter,” he said. “It looked like a lady’s hand fan that was open at an angle slightly less than 90 degrees.” 

If you can’t see it right away, don’t give up.

“Comets have already been known to change their appearance quite quickly from night to night,” Lynam said. “If you are able to see it, you may recognize that it’s moving relative to the stars in the background, and if you’re lucky, you may see the morphology — the shape and structure of the tail.”

Gerald McKeegan, an astronomer at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, said the comet may even appear to have two tails — one made of gas and one made of particles. He believes there’s still a chance observers “in very dark sky locations far from city lights” might be able to see it without visual aids from now until the first few days of February. After that, the comet will remain in the night sky, but it will become increasingly difficult to see from the U.S. as it moves over the southern hemisphere. 

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) in the sky of Molfetta, Italy, before sunrise around 6 a.m. on Jan. 24, 2023. It last passed Earth 50,000 years ago, when Neanderthals still lived in our latitudes. The comet was discovered in early March 2022 and was initially thought to be an asteroid. 

NurPhoto via Getty Images

In spite of its name, observers shouldn’t expect the green comet to zoom across the sky in a vibrant, shamrock-colored hue, David Prosper, a night sky network administrator with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in San Francisco, told SFGATE. 

“The funny part is while it’s called the green comet, the color isn’t really noticeable unless you get some good magnification on it,” said Prosper, who is also an administrator of the NASA Night Sky Network. “It seems folks report a definite green color when looking at it through telescopes that are 6 inches in diameter or greater, but everyone’s eyes are different. Photos do show the green color readily.” 

Unfortunately, there are a number of factors at play that could impact the visibility of the comet. Prosper told SFGATE the moon is expected to become increasingly bright over the next week, and Dalton Behringer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said scattered to broken stratus clouds as well as a chance of rain may hinder observers on Saturday and Sunday night.   

“If people are really trying to see it, they could go into higher terrain and get above the cloud layer,” Behringer said. 

That being said, Thursday and Friday night could be your best bet. Later this weekend, stargazers may have more luck by heading over to the Chabot Space & Science Center, which plans to host free telescope viewing from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday night, and again on Feb. 3 and 4. San Francisco Amateur Astronomers plans to host a public star party this Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Presidio Parade Grounds.

Lynam and McKeegan also suggested looking out for Jupiter, which will appear as one of the brightest lights in the western sky — you can even take a look at the four moons cycling around the planet if you have a pair of binoculars. Mars will also be visible, emitting a bright orange or red light.

Regardless of what you might find among the stars, it’s worth taking a look up, as the comet’s orbit is unpredictable and thousands of years could pass before it returns, if it does at all.

“We can’t definitively say what the comet’s orbit will be. It could come once and get thrown out of our solar system completely,” Lynam said. “It could take thousands of years, or it may never come back.”



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Science

Exotic green comet not seen since stone age returns to skies above Earth | Astronomy

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An exotic green comet that has not passed Earth since the time of the Neanderthals has reappeared in the sky ready for its closest approach to the planet next week.

Discovered last March by astronomers at the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in California, comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was calculated to orbit the sun every 50,000 years, meaning it last tore past our home planet in the stone age.

The comet, which comes from the Oort cloud at the edge of the solar system, will come closest to Earth on Wednesday and Thursday next week when it shoots past the planet at a distance of 2.5 light minutes – a mere 27m miles.

Comets are balls of primordial dust and ice that swing around the sun in giant elliptical orbits. As they approach the sun, the bodies warm up, turning surface ice into gas and dislodging dust. Together, this creates the cloud or coma which surrounds the comet’s hard nucleus and the dusty tail that stretches out behind.

Images already taken of comet C/2022 E3 reveal a subtle green glow that is thought to arise from the presence of diatomic carbon – pairs of carbon atoms that are bound together – in the head of the comet. The molecule emits green light when excited by the ultraviolet rays in solar radiation.

Astronomers armed with telescopes have captured stunning pictures of the comet in the past month, showing the body’s head, dust tail and the longer, more tenuous ion tail.

But the cosmic ice ball has recently become bright enough to see with the naked eye, at least in very dark, rural areas with minimal light pollution.

Since mid-January, the comet has been easier to spot with a telescope or binoculars. It is visible in the northern hemisphere, clouds permitting, as the sky darkens in the evening, below and to the left of the handle of the Plough constellation.

It is heading for a fly-by of the pole star, the brightest star in Ursa Minor, next week.

The window for spotting the comet does not stay open long. While the best views may be had about 1 and 2 February, by the middle of the month the comet will have dimmed again and slipped from view as it hurtles back out into the solar system on its return trip to the Oort cloud.

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Science

A Rare Green Comet Can Be Seen in The Sky, And It May Be Our Last Chance : ScienceAlert

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A rare green comet is passing Earth, and this could be humanity’s last chance to see it. Stunning photos are already revealing what you might see if you look to the pre-dawn skies and spot the ball of frozen gas and dust shooting past.

Formally, the comet is called C/2022 E3 (ZTF), named for the Zwicky Transient Facility, which first discovered it in March. But skywatchers call it Comet ZTF for short.

This icy cosmic passerby is painting a green streak across the sky until the first few days of February. You probably need binoculars to spot it, or even a telescope, under dark skies far from city lights.

If you catch Comet ZTF with a telescope, you could see something like this:

Comet ZTF, as photographed on 18 January 2023. (Dan Bartlett, Business Insider)

Many comets glow green like this. Laboratory research has linked this aura to a reactive molecule called dicarbon, which emits green light as sunlight decays it.

Though green comets occasionally pass Earth, this one won’t return for about 50,000 years, if ever. That’s how long it takes Comet ZTF to orbit the Sun, which means that Neanderthals still walked the Earth when it last whizzed by, during the last Ice Age.

Comet ZTF, as seen on Christmas morning. (Dan Bartlett, Business Insider)

“We like viewing and photographing the comet because bright ones are not only rare, but beautiful like this one. The tails of comets are never two alike,” Chris Schur, an amateur astronomer and night-sky photographer in Arizona, told Insider in an email.

“[Comets] move amongst the stars from night to night, making them a challenge sometimes to just find.”

Astronomer Gianluca Masi captured the footage below of Comet ZTF, with its moving background of stars, during a live feed of his telescope observations:

Comet ZTF moves against its starry background. (Gianluca Masi/The Virtual Telescope Project)

“Observing such an ‘icy world’ is always very fascinating,” Masi told Insider via email.

“Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF reminds us, with its beauty, that those objects are the most elegant ones up there and we cannot simply miss the opportunity to have a look.”

Want to see the green comet yourself? Go to a place with dark skies, far from city lights, and look toward the North Star, Polaris, before dawn.

Use a telescope if you can, or at least bring binoculars. Unless you’re under very, very dark skies, the comet probably won’t be visible to the naked eye.

According to EarthSky.org, the comet is carving a path past the constellations Boötes and Hercules. Closer to January 30, the green space snowball will appear near Polaris and earlier in the evening.

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

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Science

How to see the newly discovered green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

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Fifty-thousand years ago, the Sahara Desert was wet and fertile. The Stone Age in Africa was just beginning, and the world’s first sewing needle was invented. It was also the most recent time that Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) swung past Earth.

The long-forgotten comet has recently returned to Earth’s night skies, appearing as a faint eraser-smudge that some have even spotted with the naked eye in the darkest areas. Catching a glimpse of it won’t be easy, but considering it’s your last (and first) shot, it may be worth a try.

Experts point to Feb. 1 or 2, which is when the comet will make its closest pass to Earth, as the most opportune time but — with binoculars or a telescope — you can probably spot it starting now.

Comets are large bodies made of dust and ice. They orbit the sun in elliptical paths, accelerating as they approach perihelion (an object’s nearest pass to the sun), and slow somewhat as they recede to the far outer reaches of the solar system.

Every comet has its own period, or the time it takes to complete an orbit and begin a new one. Short-period comets may pass by the sun once every 200 years or less. Said comets don’t travel very far out in the solar system (usually only to the Kuiper belt, or a region just beyond Neptune), and begin their return trips more swiftly.

Other “long-period” comets may take as much as 250,000 years to revisit the center of the solar system. Those intrepid bodies operate on orbits that take them to the system’s distant outskirts — often 50,000 times farther than short-period comets. Those long-period comets compose the Oort cloud, or a band of cometary debris on the fringes of the solar system.

The frozen core of a comet, known as a nucleus, is usually less than 10 miles wide. That’s about the size of a small city, or the volume of a single extremely large mountain.

Comets heat up as they approach the sun. That causes some of the ice to ablate into gas. As gas escapes the comet, it can carry dust with it. The combination gas/dust patch swallows the comet’s nucleus in a cloud known as a “coma,” then streams away in the form of a gently arcing tail.

A second wake, known as an “ion tail,” which is tied to ultraviolet solar radiation causing electrons to leap from the coma, always points directly away from the sun because of the “solar wind.”

What’s the deal with Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)?

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered by two astronomers on March 2, 2022. They were using the Zwicky Transient Facility, made up of an ultrasensitive camera attached to the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California’s Palomar Mountain Range.

At that point, it was orders of magnitude too dim to be seen with the naked eye (or even with regular telescopes). By November, it had brightened to the point of almost being visible to the highest-quality binoculars from dark areas. It was found to have a period of roughly 50,000 years.

It is believed that C2, or diatomic carbon (picture two carbon atoms bonded together), is present in the head of the comet. When excited by incoming solar radiation, it emits photons (packets of light) at wavelengths we see to be green.

Where has it been this whole time?

In a land far, far away. Until comets approach Earth and become bright enough that humankind’s most light-sensitive technology can spot a “new” unidentified object in the night sky, we simply can’t know about their existence.

Viewers in the Northern Hemisphere can look northward in late January or early February. That said, it is estimated that the comet will peak only a bit brighter than magnitude 6, which is astronomer talk for “barely visible.” That will be complicated by the waxing crescent moon, which will peak as full on Feb. 5.

If you’re hoping to catch a glimmer of its distant and muted splendor, find a dark location isolated from city lights. Binoculars probably will do the trick, but you’ll also need a little patience. A telescope would provide the clearest view.

Darker skies due to this weekend’s new moon may allow viewing opportunities, but probably not with the naked eye.

After a couple of weeks, the comet will disappear from our skies the same way it appeared — with little fanfare. The comet was estimated to have a period of 50,000 years based on its trajectory. However, there are simulations that indicate it could “escape” the solar system and essentially outrun the sun’s gravitational forces, which might mean it will never return — or at least won’t make an appearance for millions of years.



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Science

How to watch the ‘Green Comet’ as it makes closest approach in 50K years

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A green comet shooting through the morning skies is scheduled to make its closest approach to Earth at the beginning of next month. 

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was first spotted in March of last year, when it was already inside Jupiter’s orbit. It’s reportedly making its closest approach in 50,000 years.

NASA has said that it will make its closest approach to our planet on Feb. 2. 

If this comet continues its current trend in brightness, it should be easily visible with a small telescope or binoculars. 

FIRST NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN IN SPACE STEPS OUT ON SPACEWALK

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered by astronomers using the wide-field survey camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility.
(Dan Bartlett)

The agency noted that it’s “just possible” it could become visible to the unaided eye under dark skies.

MORE THAN 3 BILLION STARS, GALAXIES ARE CAPTURED IN A MASSIVE NEW SURVEY

Exterior view of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on February 28, 2018, in Pasadena, California. 
((Photo by RB/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images via Getty Images))

“If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, use binoculars or a small telescope to find Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which has been passing through the morning skies all month,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted Friday. 

It will become visible in the Southern Hemisphere in early February. 

On a voyage through the inner Solar System, comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will be at perigee, its closest to our planet, on Feb. 2.
(Dan Bartlett)

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Skywatchers are advised to check apps for the comet’s position.

On Jan. 21, the comet will reportedly be close to the constellation Draco, according to the New York Times.

Julia Musto is a reporter for Fox News and Fox Business Digital. 

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Science

How to See the ‘Green Comet’ Everyone’s Talking About

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Deep in the Stone Age, when Neanderthals still lived alongside Homo sapiens, our ancestors might have been agog at a green light in the night sky. Now, that light—C/2022 E3 (ZTF) (more familiarly, the Green Comet)—is back.

The Green Comet’s highly elliptical orbit means it will take a long time for it to swing past Earth again—about 50,000 years, to be specific. And that’s if it repeats its 50,000-year sojourn, which it may not.

Astronomers discovered the comet in March 2022 using the Samuel Oschin robotic telescope at the Zwicky Transient Facility. It passed perihelion (when it is closest to the Sun) on January 12.

Observers in the U.S. can see the comet now through early February, potentially with the naked eye if you’re in a dark viewing area, but your chances will be better using binoculars or a telescope. The best time to see the comet is in the predawn hours, according to NASA.

The comet will make its closest approach to our planet on February 2. The closest approach will take it about 0.29 AU (about 27 million miles) from Earth, according to EarthSky.

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Currently, the comet is toward the constellation Boötes and near Hercules, EarthSky reports. (If you’re having trouble finding the comet’s position, you can consult a handy interactive sky chart.) The comet’s location makes it difficult for observers in the Southern Hemisphere to see. From its current location in the night sky, its projected path charts it past Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper), with it passing by Camelopardis at the time of its closest approach.

Comets glow thanks to a combination of their chemical composition and sunlight. Comets that pass near the Sun are illuminated and warmed by its energy, causing molecules on their surface to evaporate and fluoresce. Comet heads glow green when they contain cyanogen or diatomic carbon, according to NASA.

The Green Comet may get as bright as magnitude 5 by the time it’s closest to Earth, according to EarthSky. The lower the number, the brighter the object. The full Moon’s apparent magnitude is about -11, and the faintest objects seen by the Hubble Space Telescope are about magnitude 30, according to Brittanica. The dimmest stars that our naked eye can see are about magnitude 6.

While the comet may reach a brightness of magnitude 5, it’ll probably be helpful to use a pair of binoculars or a telescope if you’re having difficulty spotting the object on a clear night.

The incoming space rock is not the only recent green comet; in 2018, the comet 46P/Wirtanen was bright enough for observers to see with the naked eye, and in 2021, the Comet Leonard glowed green as the ice-ball made its cosmic trajectory.

So keep your eyes up on the clear nights to come. If you see something with a faint green glow, it’s probably our newest cosmic visitor.

More: Mega Comet Arriving From the Oort Cloud Is 85 Miles Wide

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See the Green Comet in Pictures so You Know What to Look for

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  • A rare green comet is flying past Earth in late January and early February.
  • Comet ZTF hasn’t passed our planet since the last Ice Age, and humans may never see it again.
  • These stunning photos show what you could see if you spot the green comet in the night sky.

A rare green comet is passing Earth, and this could be humanity’s last chance to see it. Stunning photos are already revealing what you might see if you look to the pre-dawn skies and spot the ball of frozen gas and dust shooting past.

Formally, the comet is called C/2022 E3 (ZTF), named for the Zwicky Transient Facility, which first discovered it in March. But skywatchers call it Comet ZTF for short.

This icy cosmic passerby is painting a green streak across the sky until the first few days of February. You probably need binoculars to spot it, or even a telescope, under dark skies far from city lights.

If you catch Comet ZTF with a telescope, you could see something like this:

Comet ZTF, as photographed on January 18, 2023.

Dan Bartlett



Many comets glow green like this. Laboratory research has linked this aura to a reactive molecule called dicarbon, which emits green light as sunlight decays it.

Though green comets occasionally pass Earth, this one won’t return for about 50,000 years, if ever. That’s how long it takes Comet ZTF to orbit the sun, which means that Neanderthals still walked the Earth when it last whizzed by, during the last Ice Age.

Comet ZTF, as seen on Christmas morning.

Dan Bartlett



“We like viewing and photographing the comet because bright ones are not only rare, but beautiful like this one. The tails of comets are never two alike,” Chris Schur, an amateur astronomer and night-sky photographer in Arizona, told Insider in an email. “[Comets] move amongst the stars from night to night, making them a challenge sometimes to just find.”

Astronomer Gianluca Masi captured the footage below of Comet ZTF, with its moving background of stars, during a live feed of his telescope observations:

Comet ZTF moves against its starry background.

Gianluca Masi/The Virtual Telescope Project



“Observing such an ‘icy world’ is always very fascinating,” Masi told Insider via email. “Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF reminds us, with its beauty, that those objects are the most elegant ones up there and we cannot simply miss the opportunity to have a look.”

Want to see the green comet yourself? Go to a place with dark skies, far from city lights, and look toward the North Star, Polaris, before dawn. Use a telescope if you can, or at least bring binoculars. Unless you’re under very, very dark skies, the comet probably won’t be visible to the naked eye.

According to EarthSky.org, the comet is carving a path past the constellations Boötes and Hercules. Closer to January 30, the green space snowball will appear near Polaris and earlier in the evening.

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Science

Brilliant green comet loses part of its tail in stunning photo

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An image taken by an Austrian comet hunter reveals a disconnection in a stunning green comet’s tail that may have been caused by turbulent space weather. 

Seasoned astrophotographer Michael Jäger took this image of the Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on Tuesday (Jan. 17) after driving 500 miles (800 kilometers) from Austria to Bavaria in Germany to get a clear view of the night sky. Jäger shared the image on Twitter (opens in new tab), along with more photos video of the comet.

“The journey was not in vain,” Jäger told Space.com in an email. He added that when it comes to capturing images of comets, an astrophotographer can waste no time as these icy balls change rapidly when they reach the warmer regions in the inner solar system. 

Related: Amazing photos of gorgeously green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
More: How to view and photograph comets

This particular image reveals what astronomers call a disconnection event, essentially a weakening in the comet’s signature tail, which makes it look as if the tail was breaking off. 

According to SpaceWeather.com (opens in new tab), this disruption in the tail is likely caused by turbulent space weather, namely the stronger-than-usual solar wind that has been released during a recent coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are bursts of highly energetic particles from the sun’s upper atmosphere, the corona, that travel across the solar system, interfering with the atmospheres of planets and other bodies.

“A piece of Comet ZTF’s tail has been pinched off and is being carried away by the solar wind,” SpaceWeather.com wrote. “CMEs hitting comets can cause magnetic reconnection in comet tails, sometimes ripping them off entirely.”

Read more: Green comet a rare ‘messenger from the outer reaches of solar system’

A comet’s tail is made of vaporized material and dust released by the icy body as it heats up closer to the sun. While the comet itself is usually no more than a few miles wide, the tail can stretch for hundreds of thousands of miles across the inner solar system, providing the unusual celestial spectacle that gets astronomers and astrophotographers buzzing.

SpaceWeather.com (opens in new tab) added that multiple CMEs have swept past Comet ZTF this month as its visit to our region of the solar system coincides with a surge in the activity on the sun’s surface. Currently, there are eight numbered sunspots traversing the sun’s Earth-facing disk, according to the U.K. space weather forecaster Met Office (opens in new tab), so more CMEs can occur as the comet comes closer to us. Sunspots are darker, cooler regions visible on the surface of the sun that feature twisted and dense magnetic fields, which give rise to solar flares and CMEs.

A NASA image showing the path of comet C/2022 E3 ZTF across the January sky for the Northern Hemisphere. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at the Palomar Observatory in California in March 2022, is making its first close approach to Earth in about 50,000 years. The comet will soon become visible to the naked eye, experts say, and will reach its closest distance to Earth on Feb.1, zooming past our planet at about one quarter the sun-Earth distance. 

Jäger, who has photographed more than 1,100 comets since he took up astrophotography four decades ago, is certain to take more awe-inspiring  images, which you can find on his Twitter account (opens in new tab). He admitted that weather in this part of the year is not ideal for this rare celestial encounter, however.

“The weather in Central Europe is very bad and I have to travel a lot to see the comet,” Jäger wrote. 

If you want to get your own breathtaking photos of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), be sure to see our guides on the best telescopes and best binoculars that can help you get a closer look. And don’t miss our guides on the best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography to get the best comet photos you can.

Editor’s Note: If you get a good photo of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) and would like to share them with Space.com’s readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and on Facebook (opens in new tab). 



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