Comet Hartley 2 will approach Earth over the next few days; view it in Google Earth

Starting today, the Comet Hartley 2 will be making its closest approach to Earth -- if you consider 19 million kilometers to be "close". Up here in the Northern Hemisphere, it will be visible to the naked eye if you're in a dark location in a moonless sky. Otherwise, binoculars and/or a telescope will be needed.

Of course, another way to view it is with Google Earth! Google has teamed up with the folks at Slooh.com to deliver live images directly into the "Sky" mode of Google Earth.

Go access the images, switch to "Sky" mode in Google earth, and then dig into the "Current Sky Events" layer and choose "Slooh Space Camera", as seen here:

The result with give you something like this:

We discussed Comet Holmes on here a few years ago, but this new layer is certainly the most in-depth we've ever seen for a comet.

Have you had a chance to see the comet yet? Do you plan to in the next few days? Tell us about it in the comments.