Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF makes its closest approach to the Earth.

Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF will make its closest approach to the Earth slightly before 6.00 pm GMT on Wednesday 1 February 2023, reaching a distance of 0.28 AU from the Earth (28% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, or 42 470 835 km). At this distance the comet will not be naked eye visible, having a magnitude about 5.4, comparable to that of the Galilean Moons of Jupiter, but should be visible to amateur astronomers armed with good binoculars or a small telescope. The comet is currently in the Constellation of Camelopardais, which is best observed from the Northern Hemisphere. 

Image of Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF taken on 20 January 2023. Michael Jäger/Comet Watch.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered on 2 March 2022 by the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory. The name C/2022 E3 (ZTF) implies that it is a comet (C/), that it was the third comet (3) discovered in the first half of March 2022 (period 2022 E) and that it was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF).

The trajectory of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), and its position at 6.00 pm GMT on 1 February 2023. JPL Small Body Database.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is a Parabolic Comet, which is to say a comet that was disrupted from an orbit in the Oort Cloud, and is passing through the Inner Solar System on a parabolic orbit that will probably not bring it back again. This parabolic trajectory is tilted at an angle of 109° to the plain of the Solar System.

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