It is Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, which, according to scientists, is heading towards our planet.
However, it is absolutely impossible for it to hit the Earth, but it will come so close that scientists will be able to study it more closely and provide new answers.
Each year, about 200 comets are observed by telescopes and satellites, but only a few of them can be seen with the naked eye. The reason is that it is very dim.
Now scientists have estimated that it will take ten years before the giant comet reaches its closest state. Scientists estimated that the comet is about 150 kilometers wide. He writes that this makes him by far the biggest culprit in decades National Geographic.
– It was so overwhelming
It was a postdoctoral fellow Pedro Bernardinelli at the University of Washington who made the discovery earlier this summer with his advisor, Gary Bernstein. Thus, the comet was named by that name.
My phone hasn’t stopped ringing. I did not expect this reception. It was very overwhelming,” Bernardinelli says.
Over the next 10 years, the comet will only get brighter as it approaches the inner solar system. On January 21, 2031, it is estimated to be its closest point with respect to Earth.
After that it will begin its long dip back to the outer edge of the solar system, but it will remain visible in the night sky at least until 2040, and possibly longer depending on how much gas the comet emits as the ice evaporates due to sunlight.
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– This is great
Scientists have tried to interpret the comet’s past travels through the solar system to determine how much it changed along the path of the sun. According to Bernardinelli and Bernstein’s team, the comet will never be closer to the Sun in the past three million years when it passes Earth in January 2031.
– This is great. It is the size of an asteroid or small moons. From a research perspective, this is clearly interesting, Terje Wahl, Director of Research and Earth Observation at the Norwegian Space Center, says to Dagbladet.
Comets consist of huge masses of ice and dust found primarily in the outermost part of our solar system. Comets are celestial bodies floating freely in a region called the Oort cloud that is thousands of times farther from the sun than the Earth’s distance from the sun.
Leaves a cloud of steam
Occasionally, comets rotate inward in the solar system, before turning back in the direction they came from. Comets leave a cloud of steam as a result of heating from the sun.
according to Forsking A massive comet from the Sun will never come close to Saturn. So it will only be possible to detect it with advanced telescopes.
However, scientists hope that the unique event can provide more answers about how comets appeared and what happened in the solar system when our planet and many comets appeared millions of years ago.
It can provide answers to unsolved puzzles
Comets are remnants of the formation of the Solar System about 4.6 billion years ago. Because comets don’t change dramatically over time, they can provide scientists with information about what state they were in at the start of the solar system’s history, according to Great Norwegian Encyclopedia.
Several comets have been seen from Norway without telescopes, including Bennett in 1970, West in 1976, Hyakutake in 1996, and Hale-Bopp in 1997. The most famous of these is Halley’s Comet from 1910.
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