Comet to make first and likely only appearance in recorded history

The new year has just begun, but the cosmos is already set to make history in 2023. A comet discovered less than a year ago has traveled billions of miles from its believed origins at the edge of our solar system and will be visible in just a few weeks during what will likely be its only recorded appearance. 

The comet, C/2022 E3 (ZTF), was first seen in March 2022 as it made its way through Jupiter's orbit. According to NASA, it's a long-period comet believed to come from the Oort Cloud, the most distant region of Earth's solar system that's "like a big, thick-walled bubble made of icy pieces of space debris" that can get even bigger than mountains. The inner edge of this region is thought to be between 2,000 and 5,000 astronomical units (AUs) from the sun — between 186 billion and 465 billion miles. 

This means that C/2022 E3 (ZTF) has made a rare, once-in-a-lifetime journey to be close to Earth. 

Comet to make first and likely only appearance in recorded history