MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/. The closest approach to the Earth of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), discovered last March, will take place on February 1, the press service of the Moscow Planetarium told TASS on Wednesday.
Even at the moment of its closest approach, the comet will be 100 times farther from the Earth than the Moon, senior researcher at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute Vladimir Surdin told TASS.
"The comet’s closest approach is due on February 1, when we will be separated by mere 42 million kilometers. It is hard to predict how bright it will be at the moment of the approach. One may suggest that its brightness will be of magnitude +5 or +4, and the size of its gas tail will exceed 10 degrees - the size of the ‘dipper’ of Ursa Major. It means that it will be seen on the sky with a naked eye, provided that the sky is dark enough," the Moscow Planetarium told TASS.
The planetarium emphasized that its collision with the Earth is ruled out.
The comet’s name - C/2022 E3 (ZTF) - stands for Zwicky transient facility, a wide-field sky astronomical survey device that helped to detect the previously unknown object on March 2, 2022.
"The comet, classified as a long period comet, has seriously increased its brightness since the discovery, and is now passing through Bootes, a constellation of the northern hemisphere. Currently, it requires a telescope to seek it in pre-dawn sky, in the form of a pale smudge," Russian astronomers said.