01:30 p.m
Sunday 05 February 2023
Books – Youssef Afifi:
The National Institute for Astronomical Research published, on its official Facebook page, a picture of the green comet C / 2022 E3 (ZTF) at its northernmost inclination in the planet’s sky.
The institute said that the image was recorded with a fixed digital camera over a period of 3 hours on January 31 near the city of Àger, Lleida, Spain.
The star paths appear in the form of circles with the same center around the North Celestial Pole, which reflects their apparent movement in the form of circles around the North Celestial Pole.
And the institute continued, to the left, the path of the polar star “Polaris North Star” can be distinguished in the form of a short, bright arc less than a degree from the northern celestial pole.
To the right, the path of the ZTF comet is evident in the images, among the star trails, about 10 degrees from the northern celestial pole, and its apparent movement also reflects the Earth’s rotation like the stars.
It is worth noting that C/2022 E3 (ZTF), or the green comet, is a long-period comet from the Oort Cloud that was discovered by the Zwicky Transit Facility on March 2, 2022. The comet has a bright green glow around its nucleus due to the effect of sunlight on its particles, especially carbon. diatomic and cyanogenic.
The comet reached perihelion on January 12, 2023, at a distance of 1.11 AU (166 million km; 103 million mi), and made closest approach to Earth on February 1, 2023, at a distance of 0.28 AU (42 million km; 26 million mi), the comet reached 5 degrees, and so it can be seen with the naked eye under a dark, moonless sky.
