A gigantic comet is currently moving towards the solar system. Researchers found it to be the largest comet ever discovered.
Ithaca – It is the largest comet ever discovered outside the solar system: The comet named Bernardellini-Bernstein C/2014 UN 271 was discovered by scientists in Philadelphia in June 2021. Researchers at Cornell University in the US state of New York have now discovered new details about the comet heading towards the solar system.
Scientists confirm: Comet Bernardellini-Bernstein is the new leader
As early as the summer of 2021, astronomers from the USA assumed that Bernardellini amber was a very large object. The scientists concluded this from its extraordinary brightness. A research team led by Emmanuel Lellouch from the Paris Observatory and other astronomers has now confirmed some of these results in the arXiv of Cornell University.
According to the researchers’ calculations, the comet, which originates from the Oort Cloud in the outermost part of the solar system, has a diameter of 137 kilometers. This makes Bernardellini-Bernstein the largest comet ever detected – even twice the size of the previous leader Hale-Bopp, which was discovered in 1995 and had a diameter of 60 kilometers. The comet is about 27 times the size of Neowise, which was discovered in 2020 and had a diameter of five kilometers.
Gigantic comet moves towards the solar system: diameter of 137 kilometers
The scientists were able to make this discovery with the help of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope observatory in Chile. Using ALMA, they measured the comet’s thermal radiation, from which they were able to calculate the size of its nucleus. However, the magnitude of its brightness is not much greater than that of other comets.
However, it will still be a few years before the comet can be seen so well again: in 2031 Bernardellini-Bernstein should once again reach its closest point to the sun. But even then its distance from the sun will be about ten times greater than the distance from Earth. Even if the comet will not offer a spectacular spectacle to the naked eye, researchers are still excited to see the new frontrunner up close: They assume that the comet contains building blocks from the early days of our solar system. (sf)
#tall #record #holder #HaleBopp