By NNN-Bernama,
Los Angeles : Comet Hartley 2 will come within 17.7 million kilometers of Earth on Wednesday, providing an opportunity for backyard stargazers to take a look, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said on Tuesday.
“On Oct 20, the comet will be the closest it has ever been since it was discovered in 1986 by Australian astronomer Malcolm Hartley,” China’s Xinhua news agency quoted Don Yeomans, head of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Office at the JPL, as saying.
The flyover is expected to take place at noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT).
The comet will become only the fifth in history to be imaged close up, the JPL as saying.
“It’s unusual for a comet to approach this close. It is nice of Mother Nature to give us a preview before we see Hartley 2 in all its cometary glory with some great close-up images less than two weeks later.”
Comet Hartley 2, also known as 103P/Hartley 2, is a relatively small, but very active periodic comet that orbits the sun once every 6.5 years.
From dark, pristine skies in the Northern Hemisphere, the comet should be visible with binoculars as a fuzzy object in the constellation Auriga, passing south of the bright star Capella.
Viewing of Hartley 2 from high ambient light locations including urban areas may be more difficult.
In the early morning hours of Oct 20, the optimal dark sky window for mid-latitude northern observers is under two hours in length. This dark interval will occur between the time when the nearly-full moon sets at about 4:50 a.m. local time and when the morning twilight begins at about 6:35 a.m., the JPL said.
By Oct 22, the comet will have passed through the constellation Auriga and continue its journey across the night sky in the direction of the constellation Gemini, said the JPL.