LANGIT7.ID, Jakarta –
National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), captured visions of a comet crossing the Earth.
Nature phenomenon this is quite rare, even once in decades.
Comets are members of the solar system that also orbit the Sun, just like Earth. On its way, comets pass through the outer solar system (outer solar system) to the inner solar system (inner solar system), just crossed Earth.
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BRIN researcher Abdul Rachman said the comet that passed this time was Comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) or K2. This comet is thought to have come from a location in the outer part of the Solar System called the Oort Cloud.
“This comet passes closest to Earth at a distance of about 2 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. Currently K2 is heading its closest distance to the Sun which is expected to occur in December this year,” Abdul said in his official statement, Tuesday (26/7/2022).
Because it is included in the non-periodic comet group, Abdul continued, K2 does not routinely pass near Earth, like periodic comets. “So it is not known when it will pass near Earth again,” he added.
For information, the initial C of the comet is of non-periodic type. The 2017 number indicates the year it was found, and the combination of letters and numbers K2 indicates the order in which it was found in 2017.
K2 traverses at a distance of more than 270 million km so it has no impact on Earth. Because it passes quite far from Earth, which is about 2 times the distance from the Sun to Earth, there are no negative effects.
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Comet K2’s appearance as it makes its closest approach to Earth, showing a dust tail and a gas tail. The closer to the Sun, the gas tail will be more clearly visible.
“When passing close to Earth, K2 can only be seen when wearing a telescope especially because it coincided with the Full Moon. However, as the comet gets closer to the Sun, it will be visible with binoculars,” he said.
This means that comet K2 is increasingly visible from Earth on its way to its closest point to the Sun. “All areas on the earth’s surface have the opportunity to see the comet on a clear night,” said Abdul.
Abdul said K2 observations were carried out at the Operational Office and Science Center in Oelnasi Village for several days from July 13, 2022. Every day the observations were carried out for up to several hours.
The data collected was analyzed for research and astrophotography purposes. “For observations used a telescope that uses a mirror measuring 25 cm and a CCD detector equipped with several color filters,” he said.
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