One of the furthest known participating comets ever spotted is sic to make its closest approach to Earth on Wednesday , and you may watch it all live – and yes , it ’s rather large .
First spotted by Hubble in 2017,Comet C/2017 K2 ( PANSTARRS ) , or K2 , was thought to be the most distant active comet ever discovered when it was spied lurking in the outer Solar System . That track record was smashed by megacometBernardinelli - Bernsteinearlier this year , but K2 has been steadily making its way towards us over the last five days . Now it ’s set to zoom just270 million kilometers(168 million miles ) past Earth on July 14 as it continues its path through the interior Solar System .
There ’s quite a lot of uncertainty around how large the comet ’s cell nucleus ( the solid cardinal filthy snowball bit ) is , but current estimates crop from 18 kilometers ( 11 miles ) to 160 klick ( 100 mile ) . Either way , that ’s a large comet – but if it ’s on the larger death of the estimates , it ’s one of the largest know comets yet , alongsideBernardinelli - Bernsteinand Hale - Bopp . A close flyby will help astronomer constrict that perimeter .
K2 ’s tail , on the other handwriting , is definitely huge . Estimates vary again , but we ’re looking atsomething between130,000 and 800,000 klick ( 81,000 and 500,000 miles ) .
During its closest approaching , it ’s set to brighten to a magnitude of 8 or 7 ( the lower the number , the brighter ) , although it will probably still be too slow to see with the naked eye . Telescopes should have no problem though , and it will be visible for the relief of the summertime .
If you do n’t have a scope , you could learn it dangle by with the helper of theVirtual Telescope Projectwhich is live - streaming it from 6.15 autopsy ET ( 10:15 pm UTC ) on July 14 .
As K2 continues on its perihelion ( its close head to the Sun ) , its behaviour may exchange . It may become more alive as the Sun heats up the glacial nucleus , and it could become brighter – or even let on apart . One matter is for certain , expect a few spectacular image of it from both professionals and amateurs over the next few weeks . Comets this openhanded love life to put on a show .
