SPACE — A space object called the volcanic devil comet erupted again last weekend on its way to Earth. The eruption caused his trademark horns to grow back.
The latest explosion was the second in a month and the third since last July. This suggests the strange comet is becoming more volcanically active as it continues its journey towards the heart of the solar system.
The comet, with the official name 12P/Pons-Brooks (12P), is a cryovolcanic or cold volcanic comet. Like other comets, 12P has a solid core in the form of a hard shell filled with ice, gas and dust. It is surrounded by a hazy cloud or coma formed from material leaking from the comet’s interior.
But unlike non-volcanic comets, radiation from the sun can heat 12P’s interior, causing its pressure to increase. Over time, the pressure of the devil’s comet became so strong that it cracked its core shell and ejected its icy contents into space.
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When the comet erupted, the coma formed the iconic devil’s horns. That’s because 12P’s massive core, which stretches for about 17 kilometers, has an unusual kind of notch. The notch blocks the flow of cryomagma into space and causes the expanding coma to grow in an irregular shape.
Apart from getting bigger, the eruption also makes the comet’s coma brighter because it reflects a lot of sunlight towards the earth. Something that makes it look even more terrifying.
On July 20, astronomers saw 12P explode for the first time in 69 years. The coma grew to more than 7,000 times the width of the nucleus. Then, on October 5, the devil’s comet exploded again with greater intensity.
And last week, on October 31, amateur astronomer Eliot Herman saw another explosion when 12P became almost 100 times brighter than usual. “On Halloween, the devil exploded again with a huge explosion that continued until the next day,” Herman told Spaceweather.com.
Later observations showed the comet’s coma expanded significantly and regrew its horns, although not as clearly as previous eruptions.
Comet Satan 12P has an elliptical orbit. This means that it is pulled closer to the Sun before being thrown back into the outer solar system. Then, it will slowly drift before falling back into the inner solar system. And so on.
It takes about 71 years for 12P to complete one full journey around the sun. Most of his journey was spent quietly in the outer reaches of the solar system. As a result, astronomers can only see it clearly when it starts to approach the sun, as is happening now.
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12P will reach its closest point to the Sun on April 24 2024, at a minimum distance of 116.7 million km. At that time, it was closer to the Sun than Earth, but farther than Venus.
2023-11-08 05:49:00
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