Japan’s cubesat EQUULEUS, which hitched a journey to the moon aboard NASA’s Artemis 1 mission in November final 12 months, took a video of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) earlier this month, about two weeks after the ice ball’s closest strategy to Earth.
The comet — additionally known as the green comet for its hue or the Neanderthal comet, because it hasn’t visited Earth because the period of the Neanderthals — could be seen within the video sequence shared on Twitter as a fuzzy white dot traversing a star-studded black-and-white background.
“EQUULEUS efficiently photographed Comet ZTF (Comet C/2022 E3) from space!” the EQUULEUS group stated in a tweet (opens in new tab) accompanying the picture sequence shared on Tuesday (Feb. 21).
Associated: Amazing photos of gorgeously green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
The 6U cubesat , constructed by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Company (JAXA) and the College of Tokyo, imaged the comet for six hours on Feb. 12. At the moment, the cubesat was about 43 million miles (69.5 million kilometers) from the comet and 211,000 miles (340,000 km) from Earth.
“These collection of pictures have been taken by calculating the timing and path from the relative orbits of the comet and EQUULEUS,” the group stated within the tweet.
EQUULEUS is at the moment crusing towards the Lunar Lagrange level 2, a gravitationally steady level within the Earth-moon system, which is about 38,000 miles (61,347 km) behind the moon on the facet away from Earth.
The mission is testing low-energy propulsion methods, together with a low-thrust water propulsion system that makes use of little or no propellant to regulate the spacecraft’s trajectory. The spacecraft additionally carries sensors to make measurements of Earth’s plasmasphere, the inside area of the magnetosphere just a few thousand miles above the planet that accommodates cool plasma — fuel through which atoms have been stripped of electrons.
As for Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), the item remains to be seen within the sky with novice telescopes however is shortly fading because it hurtles again towards the outer solar system, the place it got here from. It might pay Earth and the sun one other go to in 50,000 years, however some astronomers suppose it’s going to truly never return again, because the gravitational kick it obtained from our life-giving star could fling it out of the solar system altogether.
Observe Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
