Comet K2: How, where and when to watch solar sytem's brightest ball of ice
July 13 marked the closest approach of Comet K2 to the Earth, and there is a chance we might get to see it on July 14. David Jewitt, a professor of Earth, planetary, and space sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, said there's was a chance of spotting the comet on Wednesday or Thursday. Astronomers from NASA also said that K2 makes its closest approach towards Earth on July 13 but will likely be most visible on July 14. The comet is called C/2017 K2 PANSTARRS and is commonly known as K2. On the aforementioned days, it will come to its closest approach to our planet and complete a final round of the solar system.
Jewitt has studied this comet for five years, as he mentioned to USA Today. He cautioned observers that the K2 comet will still be far away from the Earth, so viewing it will require at least a small telescope or binoculars. According to him, the distance of the comet from Earth is around 170 million miles, which is far more than the distance between the Earth and the Sun, which is approximately 93 million miles.
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History of comet K2
Specialists at the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System in Hawaii first got intrigued by this comet on May 21, 2017. According to NASA, it was found 1.5 billion miles from the sun, between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. It has been journeying for millions of years from the cold solar system's depths.
According to experts, the comet's pre-discovery pictures from 2013 were later discovered. When K2 was photographed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, it was the furthest active incoming comet ever seen. According to Jewitt, it was spotted at a distance 17 times greater than that of the sun.
![This Hubble Space Telescope image shows a fuzzy cloud of dust, called a coma, surrounding the comet C/2017 K2 PANSTARRS (K2), the farthest active comet ever observed entering the solar system. The image was taken in June 2017 by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3
[Credits: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)]](http://d6ehjqrqtzoun.cloudfront.net/005bc134-d525-475e-b780-9e640c98b5df.png)
In June 2021, the comet C/2014 UN271, also known as the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet, overtook K2 as the comet was spotted at its farthest distance from Earth.
Origin of the comet K2
The Oort Cloud is the solar system's most remote region where many comets are considered to have originated. This is where K2 is believed to have come from. According to NASA researchers, the cloud is a massive spherical shell consisting of ice space debris fragments that are at least the size of mountains. Hence, they describe K2 as a frozen "city-sized snowball of ice and dust."
According to NASA, astronomers discovered K2 in a region of the solar system with temperatures of -440 degrees Fahrenheit. This is 1/225th the amount of sunlight that we see from Earth. Jewitt said that the comet contains materials that have been frozen since the beginning of cosmic time. "When we study these comets, we're trying to look at material that has been preserved from the beginning of the solar system," he added.
Earth's distance from K2
According to an astronomer and director of the Virtual Telescope Project, Gianluca Masi, who is located in Italy, K2 will be around 170 million miles from Earth on Wednesday night. He said that K2 is currently the brightest comet in the sky.
According to Masi, the comet's total speed in the context of Earth's motion in July was 21 miles per second on average. He said the comet's speed near Earth will be zero miles per second when K2 reaches its lowest distance sometime Wednesday night around 11 pm Eastern time.
"If we consider the component of that speed in our direction —that is, how fast the comet is approaching or leaving us — we get that this component is 0 (miles per second) at the time of its minimum distance from us, but it will stay lower than (6 miles per second) during this month," Masi said.
What is so fascinating about K2?
The "abnormally vast" distance that K2 has covered while coming from the Oort cloud is so intriguing. According to data from telescopes, K2 started to become active at an unprecedented 35 au, which corresponds to the typical distance between the Earth and the Sun. According to information from the Center for Near Earth Object Studies, a division of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, K2's close approach distance on Wednesday night is comparable to 1.8 au. "Neptune is 30 times the Earth-sun distance," Jewitt said. "It's really active, really far out, and that's why it's scientifically interesting because that allows us to study whatever process it is that drives the activity at very large distances and very low temperatures." According to Jewitt, what has kept K2 functioning at such a large distance from the sun is frozen carbon monoxide.
When and where can we catch a glimpse of it?
The Virtual Telescope Project, located in Italy, will provide a live stream on Thursday beginning at 6:15 pm ET for those who do not own a telescope. According to Jewitt, K2 won't necessarily be an exceptional sighting as there have been hundreds of other comets that have come close to Earth. According to Masi, what could make the comet much more difficult to see is the clash of the date of K2's flyby and a full moon.
Hence, it is suggested that amateur comet watchers pick a time in the coming evening when the moon is not present in the night sky. The optimum time to look up is just before the moonrise in the evening. According to Masi, the comet will be visible in both the northern and southern hemispheres in the Ophiuchus constellation. A chart to locate the comet is given below:
"A dark sky would offer the best sight," Masi said.
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Both Jewitt and Masi said that a pair of binoculars or a small telescope will be needed to view the comet. Small telescopes will allow you to spot the the comet for several months as it swings by Earth.