a comet discovered in May 2017 and recently captured from Puerto Rico, will have a slight approach to Earth next July, the Caribbean Astronomy Society (SAC) reported on Tuesday.
Comet “C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS)” was recently captured from San Germán (west) by Puerto Rican Raymond Negrón, from the SAC, who predicts that the star will have its closest approach to Earth on July 14.
The star caught the attention of scientists for its considerable and remarkable size, and will pass “at a safe distance” from Earth, the SAC said in a press release.
“Although in telescopes it looks like a small fuzzy or foggy speck of cotton, it is fascinating to know how enormous this faint object is,” the organization said.
Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope show that although the comet’s nucleus appears to be only 11 miles (18 kilometers) in diameter, the heat felt by the comet as it approaches the Sun causes it to form a huge “coma” or cometary atmosphere as the ice evaporates.
The educational entity also highlighted in the text that the comet “K2” has developed an atmosphere of gases with a diameter of 81,000 miles (130,000 kilometers).
“In other words, as its ice changes from a solid to a gaseous state, it has formed a sphere of gases whose size is 10 times the diameter of the Earth, or almost as large as the planet Jupiter,” explained Eddie Irizarry, science communicator at the SAC .
According to experts, this comet comes from the so-called Oort cloud, located in the outer zones of the Solar System, from an area so far away that it has been traveling and approaching for the last 3 million years.
Comet “C/2017 K2” was discovered in May 2017 from the PanSTARRS telescope system in Hawaii (USA) and at the time of its detection, the comet was beyond the orbit of Saturn.
If the weather conditions allow it, the SAC will show this comet and other astronomical objects to the public during a free night of observation on June 18 in the Gran Parque del Norte in Hatillo (north). e business without the consent of the other.