Look for a greenish glow in the northern sky after sunset with binoculars or a small telescope to see this once-in-a-lifetime comet show.
“Their orbits take them beyond the orbit of Neptune,” Sheppard says. “They have these very elongated orbits” that can take thousands of years to traverse. Compared to short period comets, long period comets also travel much faster relative to Earth during their time in the inner solar system, reaching speeds of about 40 miles per second.
“It takes a good bit of data to reliably determine just how long the period is,” he says. “The length of data needed varies by object, but usually weeks or months are needed before we have a confident handle on the period.” Having observed Comet C/2022 E3 since last March, astronomers are fairly confident it is a long period comet with an orbit period of about 50,000 years. This means it likely originated in the, a far-off shell of icy bodies enveloping our solar system at a distance 2,000 times greater than that of the sun from the Earth.
“The Oort Cloud has never been observed directly, but it is thought to be made up of many comets on circular orbits,” Holt says. “Gravitational interactions of passing stars or galactic tides can perturb these comets inward into an elliptical orbit.”And it’s this origin at the periphery of our solar system that makes comets an interesting focus of research, Holt explains.
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The Comet Interceptor probe could visit a stunning object like the green C/2022 E3 (ZTF)Meghan is a senior writer at Space.com and has more than five years' experience as a science journalist based in New York City. She joined Space.com in July 2018, with previous writing published in outlets including Newsweek and Audubon. Meghan earned an MA in science journalism from New York University and a BA in classics from Georgetown University, and in her free time she enjoys reading and visiting museums. Follow her on Twitter at meghanbartels.
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