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Astronomers have confirmed that an enormous comet, one so huge in fact that it has been previously mistaken for a dwarf planet is on course straight for our solar system from its outermost reaches known as the Oort cloud. Called the Bernardinelli-Bernstein Comet, it is estimated to be a potentially earth-shattering 60-120 million miles across or approximately 1,000 times the size of a typical comet.
The comet was discovered in June and is arguably the largest comet discovered in the modern era according to scientists. However, Bernardinelli-Bernstein poses no direct threat to the Earth, the nearest it will pass to our orbit will be about 10.71 au (Astronomical unit or 1 distance of the Earth to the Sun) away, roughly outside the orbit of Saturn, a long way from where it began over 40,000 au away.
The New York Post reported,
“Scientists said the comet could be the largest object from the Oort Cloud ever detected, and it is the first comet on an incoming path to be detected so far away.”
“We have the privilege of having discovered perhaps the largest comet ever seen — or at least larger than any well-studied one — and caught it early enough for people to watch it evolve as it approaches and warms up,” said Gary Bernstein of the University of Pennsylvania, who discovered the object with colleague Pedro Bernardinelli.
“It has not visited the solar system in more than 3 million years.”
A Long Wait For A Planet Sized Comet
According to Space.com,
“scientists have always expected objects like Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein to exist, wandering the frigid edges of the solar system for eons. And outside experts say that not only is the discovery not surprising, but it’s also a sign that scientists are on the right track in piecing together the history of the solar system.
“It’s neat but not that unexpected,” Meg Schwamb, a planetary astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland who specializes in the outer solar system and wasn’t involved in the discovery, told Space.com. “It fits in with the story we know.”
Even with its enormous size and how close it’s coming to Earth (in astronomical terms) the comet will still be visible only through a telescope. But it does have the unique allure that no humans have ever set their eyes on this particular comet before, the last time it was anywhere near this close was over three million years ago according to orbital analysis. So over the next ten years, we’re going to get an amazing show unseen since the days of Hale Bopp.
