Last week, a CME hit Comet ZTF (C/2022 E3) and broke the comet's tail. Yes, that's a real thing. Astronomers call it a "disconnection event." Astrophotographer Miguel Claro made a 4K video of the event from the Dark Sky® Alqueva Observatory in Portugal:
"This time lapse sequence comprising 3.5 hours of images shows a piece of the plasma tail being uprooted from the comet’s head, and then carried away by the solar wind," says Claro. "This long distance traveller not seen in 50,000 years, was moving fast against the background starry sky alsongside a few rapid greenish meteors."
CMEs hitting comets can cause magnetic reconnection in their tails, sometimes ripping them off entirely. NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft watched this happen to Comet Encke in April 2007: movie. This month, multiple CMEs have swept past Comet ZTF as a result of surging solar activity. One of them (we're not sure which) caused the disconnection event.
Comet ZTF is approaching Earth for a close encounter (0.28 AU) on Feb. 1st. CME effects will be increasingly visible as the comet approaches.
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