US EditionRecord-Sized Comet Seen Belching Jets From Surface as It Heads Our Way
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3 Articles
Record-Sized Comet Seen Belching Jets From Surface as It Heads Our Way
An absolutely gigantic comet is currently barreling into the inner Solar System at full steam. And we mean that almost literally – astronomers have now detected big outbursts of carbon monoxide belching from its surface. Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) is the largest Oort Cloud comet ever detected, spanning a whopping 137 kilometers (85 miles) wide. For reference, that's almost 14 times bigger than the asteroid that wiped out the di…
Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), the largest ever detected from the Oort Cloud, alerted astronomers by exhibiting violent carbon monoxide emissions as it advances into the Solar System. With a diameter of 137 kilometers — equivalent to 14 times the asteroid that extinguished the dinosaurs — its closest passage will occur in 2031, although without exceeding Saturn’s orbit. Observations, reported through The Astrophysical Journal Lett…
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