Catch This Tonight or Wait Another 50,000 Years

The lightshow happening tonight is 50,000 years in the making!

In the pre-dawn hours tonight, skywatchers can get a glimpse of a comet that hasn’t been seen on Earth for 50,000 years. If you’re keeping score, no one has laid eyes on this comet since the Neanderthal times after the last ice age.

The green comet has been a science mystery for centuries and only “discovered less than a year ago”, according to WFAA.

To see the comet, you’ll need to be awake before 6am and live in the Northern Hemisphere. Looking North, towards the constellation Draco, look for a green hue in the sky. The comet won’t look too exciting to the naked eye, so bring binoculars or a telescope for best viewing.

The green comet or C/2022 E3 (ZTF), as it’s actually known, isn’t going to be a showstopper for “light show of the year”, like other more well-known comets, such as the Hale-Bopp, but the thought that seeing this green piece of the universe, is pretty exciting and came along during our lifetime. It only took it ages and the distance from beyond Pluto to return.