Comet K2 rushes towards Earth for a close flyby on July 15; watch the event live

The mega comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS), also known as comet K2, is hurtling towards the Earth for a close fly-by on July 15. According to the observational data from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the comet will make its closest approach from a distance of 270 million kilometres (168 million miles) at an estimated time of 8:39 am IST. K2 was discovered in 2017 using the Pan-STARRS survey telescope in Hawaii and is considered one of the farthest comets ever found. 

Watch the comet skim past Earth

The comet's closest approach will be aired live on the official YouTube channel of the Virtual Telescope project, which spots and locates near-Earth asteroids. According to the Virtual Telescope, the webcast will begin at a scheduled time of 3:45 am IST on July 15 and you can watch the event via the video link above. 

Fate of the comet K2

After skimming past our planet this month, the comet will head toward the sun for its closest approach to the star in December. According to EarthSky, even if the comet survives the sun's wrath during the flyby, it will not be bright enough to spot with the naked eye. Notably, the comet's size is highly disputed as observations by the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope suggest the comet's nucleus to be around 30 to 160 kilometers wide as opposed to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's estimation of just 18 km.

However, professional comet observer John Noonan, during an interview with Space.com, said that the comet's visibility later in the year would depend not on the size but on its distance from Earth and the amount of sunlight hitting its surface. He further said that the comet's visibility would be a poor one due to low sunlight reflection owing to its distance from the sun. 

As mentioned above, comet K2 is one of the farthest comet's ever discovered, second only to Bernardinelli-Bernstein. Measuring about 100 times the size of a normal comet, the Bernardinelli-Bernstein was more than 4.4 billion km (2.7 billion miles) from the sun at the time of its discovery. Notably, this huge comet will make its closest approach to our planet in January 2031.