ROANOKE, Va. – By now, you may have heard of a comet entering our solar system for the first time in thousands of years.
Tony Rice, an ambassador for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, sent us a few important notes to keep in mind when trying to view Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF).
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Rice starts off telling 10 News that it will not be visible with the naked eye from urban or suburban areas.
It will be closest to the sun on Thursday, January 12 and closest to Earth on Groundhog Day.
Recent observations do show it brightening, and it will continue to do so as ice boils off it and dust ejects from the comet.
The hope is that it will brighten to a point of visibility with binoculars.
We’re told it’s not supposed to be as visible as the Comet NEOWISE in 2020.
Rice concludes his note to us with a quote by David Levy, a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. “Comets are like cats: they have tails, and they do precisely what they want.”