A giant comet has entered the inner Solar System and will make its closest approach to Earth later this month. Dubbed Comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS) or just K2, this comet will come closest to our planet on July 14, within a distance of 270 million kilometers (168 million miles).
According to NASA, observations from the Hubble Space Telescope showed that the comet had a large nucleus of less than 18 kilometers in diameter.
Can watch the comet flyby live
You can watch the comet make its closest approach later this month by tuning into a live webcast planned by the Virtual Telescope Project. The path of the comet at 6:15 p.m. EST. will be broadcast live on [3:45 am IST on July 15] On the official YouTube channel of Virtual Telescope.
Comet K2. more information about
Comet K2 was discovered by astronomers using the Pan-STARRS survey instrument in Hawaii in 2017. It was considered the most distant active inbound comet in recorded history at the time because the comet was 2.4 billion kilometers away from the Sun. NASA says that this comet was between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus at the time of its discovery. Interestingly, K2 was photographed as recently as last month when it was passing IC 4665, an open star cluster and the bright star Beta Ophiuchi near the galaxy’s starry edge.
(Comet K2 photographed with the green tail on June 20; Image: NASA)
Notably, after crossing our planet, this comet will head towards the Sun and make its closest approach in December this year. While K2 was initially thought to be the most distant comet ever observed, the title was taken by Comet Bernardinelli–Bernstein, which is about 100 times the size of a typical comet and is 4.4 billion km (2.7 billion miles) from the Sun. was far away. This was seen for the first time. Notably, Bernardinelli-Bernstein will make its closest approach in January 2031, according to Earthsky.com.
As for K2, its size is somewhat disputed as the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFH) has estimated its nucleus to be between 30 and 160 km while Hubble estimates it to be less than 18 km.
