Astronomers say they have spotted the largest comet nucleus ever thanks to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA’s Hubble Telescope Detects Largest Comet Nucleus Ever FoundNASA Hubble Telescope Detects Largest Comet Nucleus Ever Found
Astronomers say they have spotted the largest comet nucleus ever thanks to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Key points:
Comet C/2014 UN271 has been observed and studied since 2010
The comet’s nucleus is 50 times larger than that of most comets.
It will not approach more than 1,600 million kilometers from the Sun, says NASA
This luminous blue glow, called comet C/2014 UN271, was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein using archival images from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
The comet has been observed since 2010, when it was 4.8 billion kilometers from the sun, and has been studied ever since.
According to NASA, its estimated diameter is about 85 miles or 137 km across, making it larger than the ACT.
The comet’s nucleus is about 50 times larger than that of most comets.
Its mass is estimated to be staggering. 450 billion tons — one hundred thousand times greater than the mass of a typical comet that is much closer to the Sun.
Charging
Comet is ‘the tip of the iceberg’
A professor of planetary science and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles, David Jewitt, said in a statement: “This comet is literally the tip of the iceberg of many thousands of comets that are too faint to see in the most distant parts.” . Of the solar system.
“We always suspected that this comet had to be big because it is so bright at such a great distance. We now confirm that it is,” he added.
Professor Jewitt co-authored a recent study of the comet in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, along with lead author Man-To Hui of the Macau University of Science and Technology.
How was it detected?
According to NASA, the comet is currently too far away for Hubble to make out its nucleus.
The challenge in measuring the comet’s size was distinguishing its nucleus from the huge, dusty coma that engulfs it: a cloud of gases that surrounds a comet’s nucleus.
But what the Hubble data did reveal was a spike of bright light at the core’s location.
Dr. Hui and his team created a computer model of the surrounding coma and adjusted it to fit the Hubble images.
Then, they removed the glow from the coma, revealing its stellar core.
So, is it headed our way or not?
Don’t worry, we’re not going to be in a real-life version of the movie Don’t Look Up.
The comet is traveling at 35,400 kilometers per hour from the edge of the solar system.