According to Live Science, it is comet “C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS)”, referred to as K2, which is operated by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS, located in Hawaii – USA). discovered in 2017 in the outermost region of the solar system.
On July 14, K2 will approach the nearest Earth at a distance of 270 million km, ie orbiting Mars. However, it is very large, so this is a great opportunity for observatories to photograph it.
The faint light that appears in the image on June 26 is comet K2, which is getting closer and closer to the Earth – Photo: VIRTUAL TEMPERATURE PROJECT
The comet’s path can be viewed online via the Virtual Telescope Project’s tool, which will be relayed by Space on the Space.com homepage, starting at 22:15 GMT.
K2 once roamed as far as the distance between Saturn and Uranus, but for the past 5 years it has been steadily heading towards Earth.
This giant comet is a mass of frozen gas, rock and dust that is slowly sublimating as it approaches the Sun. The sublimation phenomenon is caused by the heat of the Sun causing its solid ice to turn directly into gas, creating a beautiful coma that surrounds the comet.
Observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope suggest that the diameter of comet K2 may be about 12 km, however the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT, located in Hawaii) suggests that the nucleus of K2 has can be 30-160 km in diameter.
