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Astronomers confirm comet with largest nucleus ever found

Using the Hubble Space Telescope astronomers determined that the nucleus of Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein (C/2014 UN271) is about 80 miles wide, making it the largest comet on record.

The estimated diameter is approximately 80 miles across, making it larger than the state of Rhode Island. The nucleus is about 50 times larger than found at the heart of most known comets. Its mass is estimated to be a staggering 500 trillion tons, a hundred thousand times greater than the mass of a typical comet found much closer to the Sun.

The behemoth comet, C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) is barreling this way at 22,000 miles per hour from the edge of the solar system. But not to worry. It will never get closer than 1 billion miles away from the Sun, which is slightly farther than the distance of the planet Saturn. And that won’t be until the year 2031.

The previous record holder is comet C/2002 VQ94, with a nucleus estimated to be 60 miles across. It was discovered in 2002 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project.

This measurement does have a great deal of uncertainty, as Hubble cannot yet resolve the nucleus, and thus its diameter was determined by computer models based on the size of the comet’s coma, or surrounding atmosphere.

The comet itself has an orbit 3 million years long, which means it has zipped into the inner solar system many many times. The reason its nucleus remains so large is because its orbit never gets that close to the Sun, so its material does not get burned off so much with each perihelion. That it exists suggests there could be many such large comets which never dip close to the Sun.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • Skunk Bucket

    Contrast Bob’s factual and level-headed headline with how Microsoft News reported it yesterday: “The Largest Comet Ever Has Just Been Confirmed By NASA and It’s Heading Our Way”. For the barest of moments, I thought there was a chance we were going to get creamed by Lucifer’s Hammer, but then I considered the source and looked closer. To their credit, the article did state that the comet would come no closer to the sun than the orbit of Saturn.

  • Call Me Ishmael

    “… it has zipped into the inner solar system many many times”

    The “inner solar system” is generally defined as within the orbit of Mars, in which case no, it never has. On the other hand the “inner solar system” might one day be considered anything this side of the Kuiper Belt, in which case yes, indeed.

  • ” . . .barreling this way at 22,000 miles per hour . . .”

    Yawn.

    We’ve done better.

  • Jeff Wright

    In a million years, 2060 Chiron…a Centaur-could become a short period comet that is 200 km wide…as Gliese 710 passes through-called DM 61 366 in The Starflight Handbook.

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