VIVA – Comet very large, which was initially mistaken for a dwarf planet, is on a trajectory in the outer Solar System. The comet, dubbed C/2014 UN 271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) is approaching Sun, no closer than Saturn’s outer orbit.
Its gigantic size and at its closest distance certainly provide a rare opportunity for researchers to be able to study pure objects from the Oort Cloud, as well as find new information about the formation of the Solar System, citing the page. Science Alert, Friday, October 1, 2021.
“We had the privilege of finding the largest comet ever discovered and capturing it early enough to see it evolve as it approached and then warmed up,” said astronomer Gary Bernstein of the University of Pennsylvania in the US.
According to him, the giant comet has not visited the Solar System for more than 3 million years. The outer Solar System is generally a rather mysterious place.
Because, the distance is very far and quite dark. The objects in it are quite small. So, what’s out there must pass through Neptune’s orbit which is quite challenging.
The Kuiper Belt is made up of tiny icy bodies. While the Oort Cloud at longer distances is specifically more difficult to trace. Earlier this year, Bernstein and a team of astronomers revealed that they had discovered 461 previously unknown objects in the outer Solar System through Dark Energy Survey (DES) data.
One of the objects that Bernstein and his team of astronomers discovered was Comet C/2014 UN 271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein). They have described the comet in greater detail in the paper The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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