NASA: Huge Comet K2 to make closest approach to Earth on July 14; Here's how to watch live

A huge comet has entered the inner solar system and will make its closest approach to Earth later this month. Dubbed Comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS) or just K2, this comet will come closest to our planet on July 14 within a distance of 270 million kilometres (168 million miles).

According to NASA, observations from the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that the comet had a large nucleus less than 18 kilometres in diameter. 

One can watch the comet's flyby live

You can watch the comet make its closest approach later this month by tuning into the live webcast planned by the Virtual Telescope Project. The comet's passage will be aired live at 6:15 p.m. EST [3:45 am IST on July 15] on Virtual Telescope's official YouTube channel. 

More about the comet K2

The comet K2 was discovered by astronomers using the Pan-STARRS survey instrument in Hawaii in 2017. It was considered the farthest active inbound comet in recorded history at the time as the comet was 2.4 billion kilometres from the Sun. NASA says that this comet was between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus at the time of its discovery. Interestingly, K2 was photographed as recently as last month when it was passing through an open star cluster IC 4665 and the bright star Beta Ophiuchi, near a starry edge of the Milky Way. 

(Comet K2 photographed with a green tail on June 20; Image: NASA)

Notably, after crossing our planet, this comet will head toward the Sun and get closest to it in December this year. While K2 was initially considered the farthest observed comet so far, this title was taken over by the Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein which is about 100 times the size of a normal comet and was more than 4.4 billion km (2.7 billion miles) from the sun when it was first spotted. Notably, the Bernardinelli-Bernstein will make its closest approach in January 2031, according to Earthsky.com.

As for K2, its size is somewhat disputed as the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope (CFH) estimates its nucleus to range between 30 to 160 km whereas Hubble estimates the same to be less than 18 km.