Largest comet ever seen is heading towards the Sun, not us
An enormous asteroid from the outskirts of the solar system is heading towards the Sun, but will not come anywhere near Earth.
Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is 1000 times larger than the average comet and was first spotted 4 billion kilometres from our solar system in 2014, roughly the same distance as Neptune; between its first sighting and this month, it has travelled another billion kilometres closer to us.
The comet’s orbit is perpendicular to the plane of the Solar System, and it will reach its closest point to the Sun (known as the perihelion) in 2031 – but despite its size and proximity to our closest star, amateur astronomers will only be able to see it with a large telescope, even at its brightest.
“We have the privilege of having discovered perhaps the largest comet ever seen — or at least larger than any well-studied one — and caught it early enough for people to watch it evolve as it approaches and warms up,” said the University of Pennsylvania’s Gary Bernstein, who found and named the comet. “It has not visited the Solar System in more than 3 million years.”
The comet originated in the Oort Cloud, a gathering of icy planetesimals – cosmic bodies made of huge amounts of dust. While this cloud is only theoretical with our current understanding of science, it is thought that they surround the Sun between 0.03 and 3.2 light years from it, having been scattered to the far reaches of the Solar System by the movement of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune billions of years ago.
Image: Nasa / JPL
Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is thought to be the largest member of the Oort Cloud ever detected, and it is the first comet on an incoming path that has been detected so far away.
Astronomers believe that there may be many more undiscovered comets of this size waiting in the Oort Cloud, far beyond Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.
“This is a much needed anchor on the unknown population of large objects in the Oort Cloud and their connection with early migration of the ice/gas giants soon after the Solar System was formed,” said NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory) astronomer Tod Lauer.
Chris Davis, National Science Foundation Program Director for NOIRLab, added: “Finding huge objects like Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is crucial to our understanding of the early history of our Solar System.”
See more here: msn.com
Header image: Universe Today
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
There was a similar report about a week ago. (https://principia-scientific.com/incoming-comet-could-be-among-the-largest-yet-found/)
I can not remember if I made a comment about it then. But if I did it bears repeating.
This article concludes with: “Chris Davis, National Science Foundation Program Director for NOIRLab, added: “Finding huge objects like Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is crucial to our understanding of the early history of our Solar System.””
What is not shown in the animated ‘figure’ is Pluto and its orbit. Should we really forget its existence. Are we forgetting that the orbits of the planets are elliptical and that the influence any bodies ‘gravity never quick goes away. And that the gravity of Neptune might pull this astroid out of the known Oort Cloud if alignment of our solar system is just ‘right’. And I have to ask: Is a COMET different than an ASTEROID or are they the same thing??? For a long time I thought that a comet was primarily comped of volatile matter like water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, etc and an asteroid was primarily composed of non-volatile solid mineral matter.
So, it seems that some scientists might be getting sloppy in accurately defining fundamental SCIENTIFIC words.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Andy
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Hi Jerry, NASA describes comets as “cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust” and asteroids as “small, rocky objects that orbit the Sun like planets, they are much smaller than planets”.
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Moffin
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Hi Andy. It reads as if you are describing one of the regular commenters where the gasses are noxious..
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Andy,
As I turn to my Webster I see the problem which seems to exist. For there is nothing in its definition about the composition of a comet. So all I can state is; until I read NASA’s definition, I had never before read that comets were composed of rock\s. For the large objects changes my idea about the importance of water (ice) in a comet. For the rock provides a significant gravitation attraction for the tiny dust particles and the even smaller water molecules to come together to form the snowball out in very big space.
Have a good day, Jerry
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