World News

A comet visiting the sky for the first time in 50,000 years: it will pass close to the Sun and could be visible to the naked eye in late January!

Published

3 months ago

January 8, 2023

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Steph Deschamps / January 8, 2023

Its last visit was 50,000 years ago: the comet “C/2022 E3 (ZTF)”, from the farthest reaches of the solar system and recently discovered, will pass close to the Sun this week and could be visible to the naked eye in late January.

The small, rocky, icy body, estimated to be about 1 km in diameter, was discovered in March 2022 by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) astronomical sky survey program operating the Samuel-Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory in California.

Detected as it passed through Jupiter’s orbit, the comet is currently heading toward the Sun and will reach its perihelion, or closest point to the Sun, on Jan. 12, astronomers calculate.

The celestial object will then be “10% farther” from the Sun than the Earth is (about 150 million km), said Nicolas Biver, of the Observatoire de Paris-PSL.

When a comet gets closer to the Sun, the ice contained in its nucleus sublimes and lets escape a long trail of dust reflecting the light of the Sun.

It is this bright hair that will be seen from Earth as C/2022 E3 (ZTF) comes toward us.

The comet will reach the peak of its brilliance “when it’s closest to Earth,” says Thomas Prince, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology who is working on ZTF.

However, the phenomenon will be less spectacular than during the passage of its congeners Hale-Bopp (1997) or Neowise (2020), much larger.

The star will be easy to spot with a good pair of binoculars, and maybe even with the naked eye during a part of the night, under a sky without too much Moon and free of light pollution.

The best viewing window should be the weekend of January 21-22 and the week following.

During this period, the comet will pass between the constellations of the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper. Before plunging into the Southern Hemisphere and heading back to the outer reaches of the solar system, its probable birthplace.

According to current models, comets come from two reservoirs: the Kuiper belt, beyond Neptune’s orbit, or the Oort cloud, a vast theoretical area located up to one light year from the Sun, at the limit of its gravity field.

“Based on the inclination of the plane of its orbit, it would be a long-period comet originally from the Oort cloud,” according to Biver.

This is not the first time that the icy visitor has passed close to the Sun: a previous journey had already propelled it towards our lands, about 50,000 years ago.

The comet then went back in the other direction, but without going as far as the Oort cloud. This time, it will probably end up being “definitely ejected from the solar system ».

Its final visit will be an opportunity for scientists to understand a little more about the composition of comets, especially through observations from the James Webb Space Telescope.

“We’re going to observe it from every angle. It’s not the comet of the century, but we’re happy to be able to observe comets like this every one or two years, because we consider them to be remnants of the formation of the solar system,” explains Biver.

This “rare visitor” will bring “information on the ‘inhabitants’ of our solar system far beyond the most distant planets”, adds Thomas Prince.

World News

Shooting in Hamburg, Germany, leaves two dead

Published

2 days ago

March 27, 2023

Magnate Daily

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Sylvie Claire / March 27, 2023

Two people died in a shooting that took place Saturday night in Hamburg (Germany). According to the police, a man would have shot another individual before turning the weapon against him.

It could be a settlement of accounts between motorcycle gangs, the German press reported Sunday.

Earlier this month, the city of Hamburg was the scene of a shooting that left 7 dead and 12 wounded among the Jehovah’s Witness community.

Entertainment

Actor Peter Hardy, known for his role in “Neighbours”, was found dead

Published

6 days ago

March 23, 2023

Magnate Daily

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Steph Deschamps / March 20, 2023

Peter Hardy is gone. The “Neighbours” actor died of drowning on a beach in Australia.

The world of cinema is in mourning this Sunday. We learned that Peter Hardy died on Thursday. The Australian actor died of drowning on a beach in Fremantle near Perth, Australia. According to several local sources, he was snorkeling at the time of the facts.

Peter Hardy was known for his role in the soap opera “Neighbours”. He had a career of almost 40 years on the big and small screen. He had also participated in the musical “Mamma Mia”.

The actor was 66 years old.

World News

War in Ukraine: the International Criminal Court will not let go of Vladimir Putin, the international arrest warrant remains valid for life

Published

6 days ago

March 23, 2023

Magnate Daily

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The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC) for Russian President Vladimir Putin will remain valid even if Russia’s war against Ukraine ends.

“There is no statute of limitations on war crimes,” ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan told BBC Radio on Monday.

The latter highlights Vladimir Putin’s alleged responsibility for the war crimes committed in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country. The arrest warrants against the head of state and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, will therefore remain hanging over their heads for the rest of their lives, he said. “Unless they appear before the independent judges of the court and the judges decide to drop the charges. »

The arrest warrants are essentially symbolic. A trial seems to be out of the question for the time being.

The British lawyer and chief prosecutor in the trial of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague told Sky News reporters that because of the arrest warrant for him, Vladimir Putin has become a wanted criminal. “This label will stick to him for the rest of his life, unless he is tried and acquitted or, which is almost unthinkable, the ICC withdraws the arrest warrant,” he explained. “The arrest warrant is a very, very important and encouraging step,” he said.