Giant ‘cosmic snowball’ K2 Comet receding in the sky but you can still spot the ‘megacomet’ this summer – here’s how

You can still spot a giant ice comet, which came closest to Earth Thursday.

A telescope can help you spot the K2 Comet as it recedes in the sky, in the constellation Ophiuchus.

You can still spot the 'giant snowball' comet K2 in the night sky

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The ‘giant Snowball’ comet K2 can still be seen in the night skyCredit: Fabrice Nagel / NASA

Dubbed C/2017 K2, the comet zoomed into our inner solar system at a speed of around 615 km/sec.

John Chumack of galacticimages.com discovered the speck in Ophiuchus, the constellation that bears the serpent bearer comet, when it was close to Earth.

“Look for a six-inch coma,”Chumack spoke Space.com.

What is a Comet?

Comets are “cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust”According toNasa.

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They are made from leftovers of the creation of the solar system.

A comet forms when it approaches the Sun. “tail”Made of gas and dust particles, which face away from the large star.

Comet C/2017 K2

C/2017 K2 was discovered in May 2017 at a distance beyond the orbit of Saturn – when it was around 2.4 billion km from the Sun.

Nasa revealed that K2 had been travelling for millions of years, from its Oort Cloud home at the edge our solar system.

The Oort cloud is made up of hundreds of billions and trillions of comets. However, K2 is the most massive we’ve ever seen.

In fact, K2’s tail, or coma is between 81,000 and 500,000 miles wide – that’s the size of between one to six Jupiters.

K2 has been at the constellation of Draco since July 2007 around 309 light-years away from Earth.

How to view the comet from your home?

When you’re looking at the stars, make sure it is dark. Mashable said.

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To locate Ophiuchus, you will likely need to refer to a star chart.

Look inside the star neighbourhood for a fuzzy dot, and you’ll see K2 Comet.

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