Once in 50,000-year comet may be visible to the naked eye

A newly discovered comet could be visible to the naked eye as it shoots past Earth and the Sun in the coming weeks for the first time in 50,000 years, astronomers have said. The comet is called C/2022 E3 (ZTF) after the Zwicky Transient Facility, which first spotted it passing Jupiter in March last year. The comet 'will be brightest when it is closest to the Earth', Thomas Prince, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology who works at the Zwicky Transient Facility, told AFP. That makes it significantly smaller than NEOWISE, the last comet visible with an unaided eye, which passed Earth in March 2020, and Hale-Bopp, which swept by in 1997 with a potentially life-ending diameter of around 60 kilometres. While the comet will be brightest as it passes Earth in early February, a fuller moon could make spotting it difficult. 'We could also get a nice surprise and the object could be twice as bright as expected,' Biver added. Biver said the comet was believed to have come from the Oort Cloud, a theorised vast sphere surrounding the Solar System that is home to mysterious icy objects. Prince said the comet's next visit to the inner Solar System was expected in another 50,000 years. Among those closely watching will be the James Webb Space Telescope. However, it will not take images, instead studying the comet's composition, Biver said. This 'rare visitor' will give 'us information about the inhabitants of our Solar system well beyond the most distant planets', he added.