Jordan Mendoza is on Usa Today.
The Hubble Telescope has confirmed the existence of the largest comet ever discovered, and it will pass by our sun in the next decade.
asteroids are rocky objects, while comets are a ball of ice and dust. The nucleus of a comet is visible as it approaches the sun.
The largest icy comet nucleus ever seen is 80 miles wide, and it's called C/2014 UN271. Its nucleus is 100,000 times larger than most comets.
The comet is travelling at 22,000 mph. It will be around 1 billion miles away from the sun when it makes its closest approach in 2031. The findings on the comet were published in a journal.
David Jewitt, planetary science and astronomy professor at UCLA and co-author of the study, said that this comet is the tip of the iceberg for many thousands of comets that are too faint to see in the more distant parts of the solar system. We confirm that it is.
The comet was spotted when it was more than 3 billion miles from the sun, an indicator of its size.
The Macau University of Science and Technology in Taipa, Macau, lead author of the study, said they guessed the comet might be big, but needed the best data to confirm it.
Astronomers took pictures of the comet using the Hubble telescope. The nucleus of the comet was seen in the images, but the cloud and tail were not. The coma expands as a comet gets closer to the sun.
The comet is 2 billion miles away from the sun, where the temperature is minus 343 degrees Fahrenheit, enough for carbon monoxide to form a coma.
The computer model of the comet was adjusted to the telescope images. They were able to take out the coma and leave the nucleus.
The computer model of the coma was adjusted to fit the Hubble images. The glow of the coma was subtracted.
The team took photos of the nucleus and compared it to radio observations from the ALMA. Astronomers were able to determine its diameter using the combined data.
Jewitt said that it is big and blacker than coal.
It takes 3 million years for the comet to get to half a light-year from the sun.
Astronomers hope the comet will give them some answers about comets from the Oort Cloud. The Oort Cloud is believed to hold trillions of comets and has yet to be observed directly.
More information: Man-To Hui et al, Hubble Space Telescope Detection of the Nucleus of Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli–Bernstein), The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2022). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac626a Journal information: Astrophysical Journal LettersUSA Today is a part of the USA.
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