After 3.5 million years, the nearly spherical 'cow of comets' is headed our way - Digital Journal

An illustration of the massive comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein . Image courtesy of NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva), CC SA 4.0.

An enormous comet – a nearly spherical “cow of comets” and possibly the largest one ever detected — is barreling toward the inner solar system with an estimated arrival time of 10 years from now, according to new research.

The comet, known as the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet (or C/2014 UN271, in Astro-speak), Is named for two astronomers at the University of Pennsylvania who discovered it – Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein.

The massive comet is nearly spherical, and at least 62 miles (100 kilometers) across — about 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet. It’s so large that astronomers previously mistook it for a dwarf planet, according to a statement announcing the comet’s discovery in June 2021.

The comet was actually an added surprise for the two astronomers. They discovered the comet on data called the Dark Energy Survey (DES), which ran on a telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile from 2013 to 2019.

The DES project captured more than 80,000 images of the sky, revisiting specific patches about every two weeks. In each image are tens of thousands of cosmic objects of all shapes and sizes.

Bernardinelli’s doctoral thesis focused on identifying a class of objects called trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), of which Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is distinctly not one, although his research discovered more than 800 of those as well.

“It was a little bit of luck that we caught it,” Bernstein said, according to Space.com, adding that the luck likely was a result of the object being so easy to see.

SOAR is an optical telescope, meaning that it observes the skies in the wavelength range that the human eye is sensitive to (and a little beyond). The telescope, however, is equipped with a 4.1-meter mirror, so it can collect a lot more light than human eyes. SOAR is based in Chile at Cerro Pachón. It stands at an altitude of 2,700 meters (8,900 feet) above sea level, which in this winter scene, explains the frosted mountain tops! SOAR is operated by the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. Credit:CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. Fuentes

New estimates about Bernardinelli-Bernstein ‘s journey toward the sun

First things first – Live Science is reporting there is no threat to Earth from the comet. Bernardinelli-Bernstein (BB) is currently cruising through the Oort cloud at about 29 times the distance between Earth and the sun, or 29 astronomical units (AU).

BB’s closest approach to Earth will occur in 2031 when scientists predict it will swing by our planet – within 10.97 AU of the sun — putting it just outside of Saturn’s orbit

While that’s far enough from Earth that we won’t be able to see the comet without telescopes, it’s a lot closer than BB’s last visit to our part of the solar system. After modeling the comet’s trajectory, the study authors calculated that comet BB made its last approach 3.5 million years ago, coming within 18 AU of the sun.

“We conclude that BB is a ‘new’ comet in the sense that there is no evidence for [a] previous approach closer than 18 AU,” the researchers wrote in their study; in other words, humans have never laid eyes on it before.

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2021-10-03 16:14:33Z
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