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COMETS AND ASTEROIDS
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
|February 2023
Fingers crossed for comet C/2022 E3 ZTF reaching naked-eye visibility this month
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Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF is well-positioned at the start of February, high in the sky, and theoretically above the threshold for naked-eye visibility. There are a couple of reasons why this is unlikely to be the case though. First, the comet is expected to reach a peak magnitude of +4.8 around the end of January and start of February. Comet magnitudes can be misleading because they refer to how bright the object would look if its light were condensed into a single point like a star. If the comet has a tangible s
This story is from the February 2023 edition of BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
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