Image source, NASA, ESA, Man-To Hui Macau University of Science
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The image on the left shows the comet on January 8, 2022. The image on the right shows the ‘coma’ – the outer layer around the comet’s core.
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A comet with a core 50 times larger than the usual comets we see is hurtling toward Earth at a speed of 35,400 kilometers per hour.
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The US space agency’s Hubble Telescope determined the comet’s icy core to have a mass of about 500 trillion tons and a width of 137 kilometers – larger than the US state of Rhode Island and the province of East Kalimantan in Indonesia.
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But not to worry. Even though it’s pointing toward Earth, the comet’s closest approach to our planet is estimated to be a billion miles from the Sun, and that won’t happen until 2031.
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The comet was first seen in 2010, but Hubble was only able to confirm its magnitude now.
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And its size is larger than any other comet that astronomers have ever seen before.
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“We had expected that this comet was very large, because its light is very bright even though it is still very far away,” said David Jewitt, professor of planetary science and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
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“Now we have that confirmation,” said Jewitt.
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NASA describes the ball of dirt and ice as a giant beast “sliding this way.”
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According to the space agency’s statement, the comet was first discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey at the Inter-American Cerro Tololo Observatory in Chile.
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Image source, NASA
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A NASA astronaut is doing maintenance on the Hubble telescope.
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Comets, referred to by NASA as “Lego blocks” of ice, are remnants from the era of the early formation of the planets.
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“They were thrown out of the Solar System by the game pinball the gravitational force between the large planets on the outer side of the system,” NASA said in a statement.
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“Comets that are kicked out then settle in the Oort Cloud, a large reservoir for comets that circle the Solar System from a distance.”
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Man-To Hui of the Macau University of Science and Technology called the comet a “wonderful object”.
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“We had expected the size to be quite large, but we needed the best data to confirm it,” he said.
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Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein has followed an elliptical orbit for three million years, bringing it about half a light year from the Sun.
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The comet is now less than two billion miles from the Sun, almost perpendicular to our Solar System.
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