During the last Ice Age, a Neanderthal father and daughter discover a green light across the night sky.
It is a green comet with a white tail.
50,000 years later, the green light reappeared in the night sky of Chungju.
This is the comet ‘C/2022 E3’, whose existence was known in March last year.
The comet that passed the closest point to the sun on January 12 is tomorrow at 2:56am.
It passes the closest distance to Earth.
That distance is about 42.5 million km, about 110 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
The brightness of the comet is about 4.6 magnitudes, brighter than the 6th magnitude, which is the minimum condition for naked eye observation, so it can be found with the naked eye outside the city center and in places without light pollution.
[이태형 / 충주 고구려천문과학관장 : 근지점 전후로 상현에서 보름으로 향하고 있는 달로 인해, 달이 떠 있는 시간에는 맨눈으로 관측하기는 쉽지 않습니다. 쌍안경 정도는 있어야 관측이 수월하며 도심에서는 70~80mm 소구경 망원경은 있어야 관측할 수 있습니다.]
The comet can be found in the mid-sky between Polaris and the first magnitude star Capella, the main star of Auriga.
From next week, the comet will get darker as it moves away from Earth, making it difficult to observe with the naked eye, but if you use the observatory’s telescope, you can observe the comet near Taurus until the end of February.
The green comet is expected to return to the outer solar system in millions of years, so if you miss this opportunity, you may never see it again.
This is Jeong Hye-yoon’s YTN.
Screen provided by Chungju Goguryeo Museum of Astronomical Science
Video Editing: Heejeong Kim
News Subtitle: Lee Seon
[저작권자(c) YTN 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]
