A bright green comet that was discovered hurtling through space just a year ago is due to make what's expected to be its only appearance over Earth, astronomers say.
The comet, called C/20222 E3, is believed to have originated in the Oort Cloud, a "thick-walled bubble made of icy pieces of space debris" at the edge of the solar system, according to NASA. That means it's traveling nearly 465 billion miles to pass by Earth, which is expected to happen on February 2nd, the space agency reports. Depending on how clear the sky is, it should be visible to anyone with binoculars, officials say.
"Most known long-period comets have been seen only once in recorded history because their orbital periods are so, well, long," reads a report from NASA. "Countless more unknown long-period comets have never been seen by human eyes. Some have orbits so long that the last time they passed through the inner solar system, our species did not yet exist."
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