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Two astronomer discovered the largest comet ever seen in the Solar System. Comet this was discovered while the two were combing through the data collected by the Dark Energy Survey.
Quoted from Cnet, The comet is cataloged as Comet C/2014 UN271, but is also known as Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its discoverers, Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein. Both are from the University of Pennsylvania.
If you are curious about how big this comet is to be called a giant, the initial estimates of Bernardinelli and Bernstein say the comet has a diameter of up to 200 kilometers.
But when the study was submitted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the estimated width of the diameter was set to be “only” 150 kilometers. This size still indicates the comet is a giant. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein has 10 times the mass of Comet Hale-Bopp, known as the Great Comet of 1997.
Meanwhile, astronomer Will Gater put together many illustrations of other famous Solar System objects to record the scale of just how big this giant sphere in space really is.
The comparison results are even more surprising. This mega comet turned out to be much larger than Mars’ largest moon. If we imagine placing two of Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos, next to Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, it will be seen that this comet is twice the size of Phobos and Deimos.
According to researchers, this massive comet poses no threat of colliding with Earth and causing an event like the age of dinosaur extinction. However, the comet is currently on its way to the inner Solar System and will make its closest trajectory to our Sun in 2031.
Comet this is likely to put on a pretty good show for astronomers in the decades to come. In fact, since now Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein has begun to show off its appearance with the explosion and brightness-enhancing activity reported by the Las Cumbres Observatory earlier this month.
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