by Ashley R. Williams, USA Today
Credit: Pixabay / CC0 Public Domain
Grab your binoculars: A comet that has fascinated scientists for five years is approaching its closest distance to Earth this week, and you may be able to see it.
There is a possibility of sighting comet C / 2017 K2 PANSTARRS, also called K2, on Wednesday or Thursday when it makes it pass definitively through the solar system, said David Jewitt, professor of Earth, planetary and space sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. Angels.
But not with the naked eye: experts say people will need at least a small telescope or binoculars to see it.
At a distance of about 170 million miles from Earth, Jewitt warned star observers that comet K2 will still be quite far away. As a reference, the sun is about 93 million miles away, he said.
“This is a very long way,” Jewitt, who has been studying the comet since 2017, told US TODAY.
Here’s what you need to know about K2 and how you can see it.
When was K2 First Discovered?
Comet C / 2017 K2 PANSTARRS caught the attention of experts at the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System in Hawaii on May 21, 2017. Experts said images were later found prior to the discovery of the 2013 comet.
It had been traveling for millions of years from the frigid depths of the solar system, according to NASA, when it was discovered between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus about 1.5 billion miles from the sun.
K2 was the farthest active incoming comet ever seen when NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured it. The Earth-sun distance was observed 17 times, Jewitt said. Scientists announced in June 2021 that C / 2014 UN271, or the comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, surpassed it as the farthest observed comet recorded.
Scientists say comet K2 comes from the Oort cloud
K2, a “city-sized ice and dust snowball,” as NASA calls it, is thought to come from the farthest region of the solar system where many comets are believed to have originated: the Oort cloud. NASA experts said the cloud is a giant spherical shell made of icy chunks of space debris the size of mountains or larger.
Astronomers located K2 in a part of the solar system where sunlight is only 1/225 of its brightness as we see from Earth and where temperatures are minus 440 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NASA.
The comet “is full of materials that have been frozen since the beginning of the solar system,” Jewitt said. “When we study these comets, we are trying to look at the material that has been preserved since the beginning of the solar system.”
How far will K2 travel from Earth?
K2 will reach its minimum distance from our planet, about 170 million miles away, on Wednesday night, said Italian astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, director of the Virtual Telescope Project.
K2 is the brightest comet in the sky right now, he said.
In July, the comet’s overall speed relative to Earth is averaging 21 miles per second, Masi said. When K2 reaches its minimum distance around 11pm east of Wednesday, it explained that the comet’s speed with respect to Earth will be 0 miles per second.
“If we consider the component of this speed in our direction, that is, the speed with which the comet approaches or leaves us, we obtain that this component is 0 (miles per second) the minimum distance time from us, but it will remain lower (6 miles per second) during this month, “he said.
Why K2 fascinates scientists
What makes K2 intriguing to scientists is that it came from the Oort cloud at “an unusually large distance,” Jewitt said. Telescope data show that K2 was activated at 35 “unprecedented” astronomical units, representing the average distance from Earth to the Sun.
K2’s approximate distance of approximately 170 million miles Wednesday night is equivalent to 1.8 au, according to data from the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, part of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Neptune is 30 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun,” Jewitt said. “It’s really active very far away, and that’s why it’s scientifically interesting, because that allows us to study what the process is that drives activity at very great distances and very low temperatures.”
Experts believe the frozen carbon monoxide has kept K2 active at extremely large distances from the sun, Jewitt said.
The views from K2 won’t be “spectacular,” but here’s where to look
On Thursday, the Virtual Telescope Project, based in Italy, plans to host a live feed from 6:15 p.m. ET for viewers who don’t have a telescope.
Jewitt noted that there are “probably hundreds” of comets that have come closer to Earth than K2 and that it will not be a “spectacular” sight for the general public. Masi also noted that the full moon will be in the sky on the date of K2’s overflight, which could make it “significantly” harder to see, he explained.
But both experts agreed that you can see K2 with binoculars or a small telescope.
The comet will be visible in the constellation of Ophiuchus from the northern and southern hemispheres, Masi said.
“A dark sky would offer the best view,” Masi said. He recommends observing K2 for the next few nights as the moon leaves the evening sky. Looking up in the evening before the moon rises will allow for the best view, he added.
The small telescopes will show the comet for several months, he said.
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Quote: K2, the brightest comet in our solar system, will pass through Earth this week: this is when we see it (2022, July 13) recovered on July 15, 2022
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