Eruption on comet results in its tail splitting as it brightens by 100x
On July 20, 2023 the Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks suddenly erupted for the first time in almost seven decades, making it a hundred times brighter than normal while splitting its tail in two.
As of July 26, the comet’s coma had grown to around 143,000 miles (230,000 kilometers) across, or more than 7,000 times wider than its nucleus, which has an estimated diameter of around 18.6 miles (30 km), Richard Miles, an astronomer with the British Astronomical Association who studies cryovolcanic comets, told Live Science in an email.
But interestingly, an irregularity in the shape of the expanded coma makes the comet look as though it has sprouted horns. Other experts have also likened the deformed comet to the Millennium Falcon, one of the iconic spaceships from Star Wars, Spaceweather.com reported.
It is believed the tail’s shape is the result of the shape of the comet’s nucleus, which probably had a solid ridge acting as a barrier to material at that point.
The comet, which orbits the Sun every 71 years, will make its closest approach to Earth in the spring of 2024, when it will likely be visible to the naked eye.
On July 20, 2023 the Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks suddenly erupted for the first time in almost seven decades, making it a hundred times brighter than normal while splitting its tail in two.
As of July 26, the comet’s coma had grown to around 143,000 miles (230,000 kilometers) across, or more than 7,000 times wider than its nucleus, which has an estimated diameter of around 18.6 miles (30 km), Richard Miles, an astronomer with the British Astronomical Association who studies cryovolcanic comets, told Live Science in an email.
But interestingly, an irregularity in the shape of the expanded coma makes the comet look as though it has sprouted horns. Other experts have also likened the deformed comet to the Millennium Falcon, one of the iconic spaceships from Star Wars, Spaceweather.com reported.
It is believed the tail’s shape is the result of the shape of the comet’s nucleus, which probably had a solid ridge acting as a barrier to material at that point.
The comet, which orbits the Sun every 71 years, will make its closest approach to Earth in the spring of 2024, when it will likely be visible to the naked eye.