The story behind Green Comet by Anagha Lokesh, Virginia
The Green Comet passes by Earth, once every 50,000 years, and is an extraordinary sight to behold.
To understand what the Green Comet is, we first need to figure out what a comet is. Comet’s are made up of dust and ice that orbit the sun. Comets are best known for their long tails and are ancient remnants from 4.6 billion years ago. Most comets come from the Kuiper belt.
The Kuiper Belt holds most of the comets, and starts right outside of Neptune’s orbit. Credit: NASA
The last time the Green Comet came to visit Earth, the observatory that discovered it, the Palomar Observatory, did not exist. Instead, the Earth was covered in icy glaciers, and wooly mammoths roamed around. Two scientists at the Palomar Observatory, in California, observed this ghost-like comet last March, in Jupiter’s orbit, while working there. On February 1st, and 2nd the green comet came the closest to Earth, as it was 26 million miles away. The Green comet appears with a greenish hue because of the diatomic carbon molecules which react with the solar wind from the sun. One scientist, Jessica Lee, from the Royal Greenwich Observatory said that, “Some people believe that because the Green Comet’s orbit is very eccentric, it may never orbit back near enough to the Earth for us to see it again.” The Green comet is an amazing part of our universe that we have been fortunate enough to even witness. It will truly change the way we view comets and our universe now, and benefit the field of astronomy for the better.
Picture of the Green comet in 2023. Source:https://i0.wp.com/abq.news/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/green-comet.jpeg?w=1200&ssl=1
The next topic will be about NASA's Space-X Crew-6!
Let me know what you think about the Green Comet by commenting. Looking forward to reading your comments!
Thanks for reading!
- Anagha Lokesh
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