A peculiar wandering body will make a close approach to the Sun in 2031. Estimates suggest that it is between 100 and 200 kilometers across.
A massive comet from the outskirts of the Solar System has identified thanks to 6 years of data from the Dark Energy Survey.
The comet, known as Bernardinelli-Bernstein, is believed to be roughly a thousand times more massive than a regular comet, making it possibly the largest comet found in modern times.
It has a particularly elongated orbit, flying inward of the distant Oort Cloud over millions of years.
It is the most distant comet to be found on an incoming path, providing scientists with the chance of analyzing many years of the comet’s evolution as it nears the Sun, though predictions say that it won’t become a naked-eye show.
The comet was discovered by two astronomers after performing an enhanced search of data from the Dark Energy Survey.
The comet is approximately ten times larger than usual comets, and it is an icy chunk propelled out of the Solar System thanks to the migrating giant planets in the early history of the Solar System.
The comet isn’t like others seen before, and the abnormal size approximation is a result of how much sunlight the comet reflects.
The Dark Energy Survey (DES) was made to map 300 million galaxies over a 5000-square-degree area of the night sky.
However, over its six years career, it observed numerous comets and trans-Neptunian objects flying through the surveyed field.
A trans-Neptunian object is an icy body residing in the Solar system beyond Neptune’s orbit.
