Largest comet discovered by Hubble Space Telescope
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Hubble Space Telescope discovers the largest comet away from Sun
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a distant point of light and it is confirmed as the largest comet.
What is comet?
A comet is an icy, small solar system body. When it passes close to the Sun, it warms and releases gases.
The come this 80 miles wide and it is known as C/2014 UN271 or Bernardinelli-Bernstein. Scientists claim that the comet is larger than the state of Rhode Island.
Observations about Comet C/2014 UN271
Scientists have observed the comet and found that it is 50 times larger than the average comet core. The mass is estimated to be 500 trillion tons, a thousand times greater than the mass of a typical comet found closer to the sun. It will pass by the sun in the next decade.
The researchers have also found that the comet is moving toward the Earth at a speed of 22,000 miles per hour. It will also make its closest approach in 2031 at one billion miles away from the sun.
This comet was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein in archived images from Dark Energy Survey in 2010. They were not sure if it is a comet and therefore, they used the Hubble telescope to take the images of the distant comet.
Scientists believe that Comet C/2014 UN271 is active even after being very far away from the Sun.
Identifying the comet
Scientists say that the bubble telescope isn’t able to capture the nucleus of the comet. It just shows a bright thread of light at the nucleus’ location.
The head of the research team, Man-To Hui made a computer model of the comet and tried to fit them into bubble images. In this way, they were able to find the nucleus. Hui further compared the size of the nucleus with other observations and it is confirmed that the new comet is the largest of all.
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