Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Local astronomer Lee Simnacher took this photo of C/2022 E3 (ZTF).
FORT SUMNER - A green-hued comet has made its closest approach to Earth, attracting night sky watchers from across the Northern Hemisphere.
Among those who caught a glimpse of the celestial object as it passed across the sky – for the first time in 50,000 years – was Lee Simnacher of Fort Sumner.
Simnacher photographed C/2022 E3 (ZTF) with his 4.5-inch Evscope Unistellar telescope, one of seven telescopes he uses to watch the night sky. He said his mother got him interested in the stars and he has continued his hobby after retiring from the telecommunications industry and returning to Fort Sumner.
Discovered in November by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility's wide-field survey camera at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, Calif., it was last visible in the night sky during the Stone Age – about 50,000 years ago.
Nicknamed the Green Comet due to its green hue, the comet has an orbit around the sun that passes through the outer reaches of the solar system, which is why it's taken such a long route to swing by Earth again, according to The Planetary Society.
At its closest, the comet was expected to be about 26 million miles away, according to EarthSky. Even during its closest approach, the comet was still more than 100 times the moon's distance away from Earth, according to EarthSky.
As the comet neared Earth, observers were able to spot it as a faint green smudge near the bright star Polaris, also called the North Star. Comets reflect different colors of light due to their current positions in orbit and chemical compositions.
A comet can be distinguished from stars by its streaking tails of dust and energized particles as well as the glowing green coma surrounding it.
The coma is an envelope that forms around a comet as it passes close to the sun, causing its ice to turn directly to gas. This causes the comet to look fuzzy when observed through telescopes.
The green comet is generally visible in the northern sky through early February. Look for the North Star, or Polaris, for a general idea of how to spot it.
