The largest comet in the universe will ever approach Earth. According to scientists, the largest comet ever shot towards Earth and solar system.
The comet has been traveling for 3.5 million years. Researchers refer to it as Bernardinelli-Bernstein. Previously, it was announced in June 2021.
Researchers have gathered everything about the comet. So it became a discovery paper and submitted it to The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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Pedro Bernardinelli is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington. He discovered the comet with his advisor, Gary Bernstein of the University of Pennsylvania.
According to Wikipedia, a comet is a celestial body that revolves around the sun. However, it has an oval, parabolic, and hyperbolic shape.
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Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein or C/2014 UN271 is the largest comet. For a comet in recent decades, C/2014 UN271 has a diameter of about 100 km to 200 km.
It’s even more likely to be 1000 times bigger than a comet that is usually seen. The size of this comet is quite large.
The astronomers who discovered it in June last year, had thought of it as planet dwarf. Unlike comet 67P or Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
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The comet was orbited by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft from 2014 to 2016. At this point, the comet is only about 2.5 miles wide.
The giant comet was observed moving through the Oort cloud. This occurs in an area outside the solar system that is composed of icy rock.
Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein appears to have a tail. It looks like it will reach the closest distance to the sun in about 10 years.
The good news is about the largest comet in the universe, it doesn’t seem to threaten Earth. Now the comet is passing through the Oort Cloud area. The distance is about 29 astronomical units (AU) or 29 times the distance of the Earth to the sun.
Although it seems far away, comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is actually getting closer to Earth. The researchers who modeled the trajectory estimate that Bernardinelli-Bernstein probably approached the solar system 3.5 million years ago and passed about 18 AU from the sun.
To be able to see this comet in about 2031, of course, requires a telescope. So that will be the first human to ever witness this giant comet. That’s because at 3.5 million years ago there were no humans on Earth.
Discovery of Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein
The discovery of the largest comet in the universe from the Dark Energy Survey program. A survey that observed the expansion of the universe, to be precise in 2014.
It was estimated this comet as a dwarf planet. The project ran from August 2013 to January 2019.
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During the survey, astronomers mapped 300 million galaxies in the southern sky. Then found 800 objects on the outside of Neptune’s orbital trajectory. Even the comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is one of them.
Over the next decade, Bernardinelli-Bernstein became brighter as it approached the inner solar system.
This will make its closest approach on January 21, 2031. When the comet is within reach, it is about 1 billion miles from the sun.
But it appears to be slightly further away than Saturn’s average distance. Then it will retreat back into the outer solar system.
In fact, it will remain visible until at least the 2040s. This depends on the amount of gas released from the largest comet in the universe.
Especially when the ice evaporates in the sun. Bernardinelli-Bernstein will appear as bright as Saturn’s largest moon in the night sky.
But Bernardinelli-Bernstein is also famous for its distance from the sun when you first see it.
Astronomers calculate that the largest comet in the universe takes millions of years to orbit the sun. Only 3 “long period” comets have ever been encountered en route from the Oort cloud.
The discovery of Bernardinelli-Bernstein while still more than 2.7 billion miles away, is surely a record for a comet. Even because the discovery is so early, it will have more opportunities to uncover it.
Researchers are also hard at work revealing the comet’s past journey. The team Bernardinelli and Bernstein have calculated in 2031.
The largest comet in the universe will be closest to the sun in at least 3 million years. (R10/HR-Online/Editor-Ndu)
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