The cosmic event, which has not occurred since thousands of years, should be visible with a telescope or maybe even with binoculars when away from city lights. Comet C/2022 E3 is currently on a voyage through the inner solar system and will be closest to earth by the end of January.
NASA told Newsweek that “Most known long-period comets have been seen only once in recorded history because their orbital periods are so, well, long,”, with some of the comets’ orbits being so long “that the last time they passed through the inner solar system, our species did not yet exist.”
What is a comet? Comets are known as “cosmic snowballs” that are made of dust and ice orbiting the Sun. They’re objects that are remnants from “the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago”.
What is a long-period comet? According to NASA, long-period comets take more than 200 years to complete an orbit around the sun. The comet with the longest known orbit travels around the Sun for more than 250,000 years!
It would be the first comet visible to the naked eye since comet NEOWISE made its appearance in 2020.
