There are many stars, comets, planets and exoplanets in the sky that we see and cannot see. Research by astronomers reveals results that will surprise us more and more every day. A very interesting comet was discovered with the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
What distinguishes this comet from the others is that it is the largest comet ever discovered, and in fact, this discovery was not the first time. Let’s take a look at the details of this comet, which will astonish researchers, and how it was discovered.
will be at its closest distance to Earth in 2031
Comet named Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein (C/2014 UN271), first imaged in 2014, It was more than 3 billion miles from the Sun when it was first imaged. This made it very difficult to investigate. Although astronomers estimate the size of this comet to be quite large, this has not been proven until now. On January 8, images from the Hubble Telescope allowed the comet’s core size to be calculated.
Man-To Hu from Macau University of Science and Technology in Taipa and his team modeled it on a computer with images obtained from the telescope. Modeling, which took into account its distance and telescopic view, showed that the comet had a nucleus of unprecedented size. As a result of the examinations, it was revealed that the comet had a nucleus of about 128 km and a weight of about 500 trillion tons. However, this massive comet has been observed traveling at 22,000 miles and approaching Earth. According to the calculations made by the researchers, it will be at its closest distance to the Earth in 2031. That means it will be about 1 billion miles from the Sun. It is currently about 2 billion miles from the Sun.
Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, which is about the same size as the largest comet ever discovered by the size of its inner core alone, becomes even more gigantic when the coma and light filtering surrounding its core are taken into account. Researchers hope this new discovery may provide details on comets from the Oort Cloud.
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