Monday, July 25 2022 – 13:55 WIB
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VIVA Tekno – National Research and Innovation Agency or BRIN mentioning natural phenomena is very interesting to the public. There is a rare phenomenon and only occurs every few years or even decades. One of these interesting and rare phenomena is comet passing by Earth.
Comets are members of the Solar System that also orbit the Sun, like Earth, which travels from the outer solar system (outer solar system) to areas within the Solar System (inner solar system) just crossed Earth.
BRIN researcher Abdul Rachman as Coordinator of the National Observatory Management Center (BPON) Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara said Comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) or abbreviated as K2 crossed the Earth.
The comet is thought to have come from a location in the outer Solar System called the Oort Cloud. The initial C of the comet is non-periodic, the number 2017 indicates the year it was discovered, and the combination of letters and numbers K2 indicates the order in which it was discovered in 2017.
“This comet passes closest to Earth on July 13, 2022 at a distance of about 2 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. Currently, Comet K2 is heading for its closest distance to the Sun, which is estimated to occur in December this year,” Abdul said in Jakarta, Monday, July 25. 2022.
He continued, because it belongs to the group of non-periodic comets, K2 does not routinely pass near Earth like periodic comets such as Halley’s Comet whose period is about 83 years so it is not known when it will pass near Earth again.
Abdul revealed that K2 was discovered by a comet monitoring system called the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (PanSTARRS) located in Hawaii, United States (US) on May 21, 2017. objects in the outermost part of the solar system.
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