It is the comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein which, according to scientists, is moving towards our own planet.
However, it is completely out of the question that it will hit the Earth, but it will come so close that scientists will be able to study it even more closely and give new answers.
Each year, about 200 comets are observed by telescopes and satellites, but only a few are visible to the naked eye. The reason is that they are too dim.
Now scientists have estimated that it will take ten years before the giant comet is at its closest. Scientists have estimated that the comet is about 150 kilometers wide. That makes it by far the biggest comet in many decades, he writes National Geographic.
– It has been quite overwhelming
It was postdoctoral fellow Pedro Bernardinelli at the University of Washington who made the discovery earlier this summer with his adviser Gary Bernstein. Thus the comet was named after these.
– My phone did not stop ringing. I did not expect that reception. It has been quite overwhelming, says Bernardinelli.
Over the next ten years, the comet will become increasingly brighter as it approaches the inner solar system. January 21, 2031, it is estimated to be at its closest in relation to Earth.
Then it will begin its long retreat back to the outer edge of the solar system, but it will still remain visible in the night sky at least until the 2040s, perhaps even longer depending on how much gas the comet emits when the ice evaporates due to sunlight.
Video: NASA found the planet the size of Earth
– This is big
Scientists have tried to interpret the comet’s previous travels through the solar system to determine how much it has changed along the way of the sun. According to Bernardinelli and Bernstein’s team, the comet will never have been closer to the sun in the last three million years when it passes Earth in January 2031.
– This is big. It is the size of an asteroid or small moons. From a research perspective, this is clearly interesting, says Terje Wahl, department director for research and earth observation at the Norwegian Space Center, to Dagbladet.
The comets consist of huge lumps of ice and dust that are mainly located in the outer part of our own solar system furthest from the sun. Comets are celestial bodies that float freely in an area called the Oort Cloud many thousands of times farther away from the Sun than the Earth’s distance from the Sun.
Leaves a cloud of steam
Occasionally, comets orbit inward into the solar system, before returning in the direction from which they came. The comets leave a cloud of steam as a result of heating from the sun.
According to forskning.no the huge comet will never get closer to the sun than the planet Saturn. It will therefore only be possible to spot it via advanced telescopes.
However, scientists hope that the unique event can provide more answers to how comets came to be and what happened in the solar system when our own planet and the many comets came into being millions of years ago.
Can provide answers to unsolved puzzles
Comets are remnants of the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Because comets do not change significantly over time, they can provide scientists with information about how the state was at the beginning of the solar system’s history, according to Large Norwegian encyclopedia.
Several comets have been visible from Norway without a telescope, including Bennett in 1970, West in 1976, Hyakutake in 1996 and Hale-Bopp in 1997. The best known is Halley’s comet from 1910.
Video: Here a planet is born
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