Palomar discovery and initial characterization of naked-eye long-period comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

• Published in: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Letters Vol. 527; no. 1; pp. L42 - L46
• Main Authors: Bolin, B T, Masci, F J, Duev, D A, Milburn, J W, Neill, J D, Purdum, J N, Avdellidou, C, Saki, M, Cheng, Y-C, Delbo, M, Fremling, C, Ghosal, M, Lin, Z-Y, Lisse, C M, Mahabal, A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 04-10-2023
• ISSN: 1745-3925; 1745-3933
• DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/slad139

Long-period comets are planetesimal remnants constraining the environment and volatiles of the protoplanetary disc. We report the discovery of hyperbolic long-period comet C/2022 E3 Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), which has a perihelion ∼1.11 au, an eccentricity ≳1 and an inclination ∼109°, from images taken with the Palomar 48-inch telescope during morning twilight on 2022 March 2. Additionally, we report the characterization of C/2022 E3 (ZTF) from observations taken with the Palomar 200-inch, the Palomar 60-inch, and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in early 2023 February to 2023 March when the comet passed within ∼0.28 au of the Earth and reached a visible magnitude of ∼5. We measure g–r = 0.70 ± 0.01, r–i = 0.20 ± 0.01, i–z = 0.06 ± 0.01, z–J = 0.90 ± 0.01, J–H = 0.38 ± 0.01, and H–K = 0.15 ± 0.01 colours for the comet from observations. We measure the A(0°)fρ (0.8 μm) in a 6500 km radius from the nucleus of 1483 ± 40 cm, and CN, C3, and C2 production of 5.43 ± 0.11 × 1025, 2.01 ± 0.04 × 1024, and 3.08 ± 0.5 × 1025 mol s−1, similar to other long-period comets. We additionally observe the appearance of jet-like structures at a scale of ∼4000 km in wide-field g-band images, which may be caused by the presence of CN gas in the near-nucleus coma.