On March 2, 2022 astronomers Frank Masci and Bryce Bolin using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at the Palomar Observatory in Southern California, came across an object which they initially identified as an asteroid. It appeared very dim — it was estimated at magnitude +17.3 — or nearly 25,000 times fainter than stars at the threshold of detectability using just the human eye. Subsequent observations revealed that this star-like object possessed a very tightly condensed coma, indicating that it was in fact, a comet.
After enough observations were gathered to compute an orbit, astronomers determined C/2022 E3 to have an orbital period of roughly 50,000 years. Its last passage through the inner solar system apparently came during the Upper Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. If we take these calculations at face value, then the last people to look up and witness this visitor from the depths of the outer solar system, were likely very early Homo sapiens or Neanderthals.
But this may very well be the last time that C/2022 E3 comes our way again. The latest orbital elements suggest that the comet is currently traveling on an orbital path with an eccentricity of 1.00027, or in other words, a parabolic orbit. Such an orbit is not closed, so after it sweeps around the sun C/2022 E3 will move back out into deep space, never to return again.
