Astronomy,  News

Comet From the Depths of the Oort Cloud Will Be at Perihelion Tomorrow (December 19, 2022)

C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) Sky Path
Path of C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) in the sky. Yellow circles sizes inversely proportional to distance, 14 days of motion. Image by Tom Ruen. License: CC BY-SA 4.0.

Tomorrow, December 19, 2022, a visitor from nearly a light-year away will come closest to the Sun (perihelion) after several million years of travel through the Oort Cloud. This visitor is recently discovered comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS). It will not return again until another several million years, so it’s definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity to observe this comet. You will need a telescope to do so because it will have an estimated magnitude of around 8.0.

See more information and other astronomical events in our stargazing calendar for December 2022.

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Paul Tomaszewski is a science & tech writer as well as a programmer and entrepreneur. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of CosmoBC. He has a degree in computer science from John Abbott College, a bachelor's degree in technology from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, and completed some business and economics classes at Concordia University in Montreal. While in college he was the vice-president of the Astronomy Club. In his spare time he is an amateur astronomer and enjoys reading or watching science-fiction. You can follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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