Green Comet ZTF Set for Cosmic Meeting With Mars in Sky This Week @TheCosmosNews

#thecosmosnews The green comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is set for a "cosmic meeting" with Mars in the sky this week—and here s how you can watch the celestial event live from the comfort of your own home. The comet was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF)—an astronomical survey conducted by the Palomar Observatory, near San Diego in California—on March 2, 2022. Comets are astronomical objects made up of frozen gases, dust and rock that orbit the sun. Sometimes referred to as "cosmic snowballs," these objects are blasted with increasing amounts of radiation as they approach our star, releasing gases and debris. This process forms a glowing atmosphere around the comet s nucleus, known as a coma—which, in the case of C/2022 E3 (ZTF), appears green. There are also two vast tails of gas and dust. The cosmic snowball has already made its closest approach to both the sun and Earth—on January 12 and February 1, 2023, respectively. It is now speeding away from our planet, perhaps never to return. By around February 11, the comet will pass through the plane of the solar system in which the orbits of the planets lie. Specifically, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will fly in between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Because of the way in which the two planets will be aligned on this date, the comet— which may have last visited the inner solar system some 50,000 years ago—will be visible in the same patch of sky as Mars. The comet and the red planet will be within just one degree of each other in the sky during this cosmic meeting. This means the apparent distance between the two objects will be roughly equivalent to two full moons placed next to each other. But even though the comet and Mars will appear to be close from the perspective of the Earth, they will be around 50 million miles apart at this point, astronomer Gianluca Masi with the Virtual Telescope Project (VTP) told Newsweek. #greencomet #cometztf #mars