The Mega-Comet Is Even Bigger Than We Thought
The recently discovered comet C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein is truly a Godzilla among comets. With a diameter of roughly 150 kilometers, it is certainly the biggest comet we know of.
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The comet known as C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein is coming back to the Sun. After a long time. While it has the year 2014 in its name when it was technically discovered in the data from the Dark Energy Survey project truthfully we have seen it only very recently. More specifically, astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein have observed it this June.
It took some time before we realized that it has to be truly gigantic. It is bright but also very far away. Original estimates were around 100 kilometers in diameter but its exact size was unknown. The problem lied in the fact that C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein was discovered at a distance of 29 AU. That’s about how far Neptune is from the Sun. And this alone makes the comet a record-breaker. We never discovered a comet as far away as this one.
Bernardinelli and Bernstein are intensively studying their mega-comet. With new observations, they managed to get better readings of its size, and from its brightness, it now seems that its core has a diameter of about 150 kilometers. It’s 50 % bigger than we thought! It is by far the biggest comet we ever got to meet.
The vast majority of known comets have a core with a size of maybe a few kilometers. Tenths of kilometers at max. The famous Hale-Bopp comet that is one of the biggest has a diameter of about 80 kilometers. And the biggest one until now? That’s a comet from way back in 1729 known as either C/1929 P1 or Sarabat with an estimated diameter of 100 kilometers.
The scientists have also calculated the orbit of the comet in better detail. The journey C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein takes around the Sun is truly long. It was furthest away about 1.500.000 years ago at a distance of roughly 40,400 AU. The last time it visited the Sun was 3.500.000 years ago and it got to a distance of “only” 18 AU from the Sun.
Now, it will get closest in 2031. And so far, it will be the closest encounter ever. It should reach about 10.9 AU (about the orbit of Saturn). If you want to observe it, for the time being, you would require a good telescope but astronomers are already studying it. The first results show that carbon dioxide or ammonia is evaporating from C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein.
What’s next for C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein? This is hard to say – as it tends to be with comets. Previous estimates said it should be as bright as Pluto but now that we know it is much bigger than we thought we think it should get as bright as Saturn’s moon Titan. Nonetheless, it will be a great target to observe for both expert and amateur astronomers.
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