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A huge comet – possibly the largest ever detected – is heading towards the inner solar system with an estimated time of arrival in 10 years, according to new research published on the preprint server. arXiv.org.
The comet, known as the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet (or C / 2014 UN271, in astro parlance), is at least 100 kilometers in diameter, or about 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet. It is so large that astronomers have mistaken it for a dwarf planet, according to a declaration announcing the discovery of the comet in June 2021.
But further analysis of the object revealed that it was moving rapidly through the Oort Cloud – a vast junkyard of icy rocks, billions of miles away. Earth. The object seemed to be heading towards us, and it even had a glowing tail, or “coma,” behind it – a clear indication of an icy comet approaching from the relatively warm interior. solar system.
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Now researchers have studied the massive comet in more detail and they have new estimates on its journey to the sun.
For starters, the huge boulder poses no threat to Earth. Currently, Bernardinelli-Bernstein (BB) crosses the Oort Cloud about 29 times the distance between Earth and the Sun, or 29 astronomical units (AU). The comet’s closest approach to Earth will occur sometime in 2031, when scientists predict that the comet will dive within 10.97 AU of the sun, placing it just outside of the sun. Saturn’s orbit, researchers say.
While it’s far enough from Earth that humans can’t see the comet without telescopes, it’s considerably closer than the rock’s last visit to our part of the solar system. After modeling the comet’s path, the study’s authors calculated that comet BB made its last approach 3.5 million years ago, within 18 AU of the sun.
Since then, the comet has traveled up to 40,000 AU, deep within the mysterious Oort Cloud, the researchers say.
“We conclude that BB is a ‘new’ comet in the sense that there is no evidence of [a] previous approach closer to 18 AU, ”the researchers wrote in their study; in other words, humans have never seen it before.
We owe our current view of the Great Distant Comet to the Dark Energy Survey (DES) – a project to study the expansion of the universe, which took place between August 2013 and January 2019. During the survey , astronomers have mapped 300 million galaxies in the southern sky, uncovering more than 800 previously unknown objects beyond Neptune’s orbit. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein was one of these objects.
Researchers have ample time to study the massive comet as it moves closer and closer to Earth over the next decade. Further examination of the rock could help scientists better understand the chemical makeup of the early solar system, as comets deep in the Oort Cloud would be relatively unchanged since they were thrown from the sun billions of years ago. ‘years. . With millions of years separating the comet’s next close approach from the next, it will be a unique contact with the early solar system.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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