There’s a giant ball of ice barreling through the solar system now, and it’s greater than anything seen before. It does not threaten soil, but this comet, called C / 2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), obtained astronomers since then the discovery of 2021. Something’s ok, sometimes called a “megacomet,” 100 times greater than most comets we see in the solar system. And now we know more about it than it used to be zooming with the closest approach to our day at 2031.
In a study published on Letters to Asstrophysical On June 12, Nathan Roth of American University and his partners reported the first connection to the Megacomet’s carbon monoxide. That’s an important search because it can tell us more about the objects, history and likely future behavior while it is in the solar system. “We want to try out what activity is driving this comet,” Roth says. “The sun is far and cold trying to explain what causes a comet ‘work’ on these distances is difficult.”
C / 2014 UN271 was the first to imagine the opportunity of observations from 2014. Seven years ago, when astronomers were over 20 times in the world-day distance, inside the orbit of Neptune. But they also know that it is in a path to bring it close to Saturn’s orbit in 2031 before it comes first again. Comet is large, up to about 55,000 times daily – 87 per cent of a light-year in a yald cloud of frosting things around our frosting around our day.
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Following the Discovers of Common Common Use different telescopes, including The Telescope in James Webb Space and the Hubble Space Telescopes, to scrutinize it from a distance. The item was originally thought to be as large as 370 kilometers (230 miles) across. The revised observations are shown that it is about 140 kilometers (87 miles) width. But that’s still the biggest anyone who sees most of the solar system comets is just one or two kilometers altogether. “It’s great,” says Quanzhi you, an astronomer at the University of Maryland, not included in the Roth study. “This represents a part of the Cometary Spectrum we do not understand.”
Some of the observations revealed explosion of activity From the comet, which develops an extent, round the “comma” of expelled gas spreading for about 250,000 kilometers (more than half distance from the moon). In order to determine the cause of this activity, the Roth and his team used atacama large millimeter / submillimeter arch (Alma) in the comet for about eight hours on March 2024.
They found a clear tracking of carbon monoxide coming from the comet, suggesting that coma flow contains a fraction of gas – while the comet will approach the sun. Carbon monoxide appears to be jets from the places of the room, which can result in overhead sun to warm up in a localized region.
“If you stand in the comet, and the day above, it is the place where the sun hath warms the face and the jet came from,” Roth said. What is not clear so far, how strongly wastes the comet and if the location of the jets changes over time. “Are there any different jets activated at different times? We have never knew,” Roth said.
Like C / 2014 UN271 approaching, other ices are often found in comets, such as methane and hydrogen sulfide ice, can also start their own contributions to object activity. “As we continue to monitor it, we will get a better idea of the chemical fingerprint preserved inside the comet,” Roth said.
Rosita Kokotanekova, an astronomer in Rozhen National Astronomical Observatorical Ondvivatory Infvivatory in Bulgaria, which is not about carbon monoxide is useful because it is “important to know how to induce activity in many distances.” Researchers have witnessed the gas station, a smaller comet at a similar distance, “which is very surprising,” he added. “People are trying to figure out what really causes this activity (away from the sun).”
C / 2014 UN271 size makes it more attractive to target for study. The presence of carbon monoxide ice doubles interesting: Analysis of available data about comet reveals that the signs of Sun-Sun activity first indicated. But according to theoretical models, the carbon monoxide ice should be lowered by the sun’s rays when the object is more than the solar system. This difference can mean the comet makes a pass on the day before, with the symbol to go to ice layers that turn off the distances on the bottom of the sun.
Finding a behemoth like C / 2014 UN271, Kokotankova says, can mean the existence of a whole class of giant computers. Such comets can be the first, the coalesce frozen items to the solar system, which is after the end they can break down to form small comets. “It is possible that little things are most fragments, while large, like UN271, never collided with anything,” he said.
That can mean that there are many primordial megacomets looking forward to discovering. If so, the recent finished Vera C. Rubin Ofpvatory in Chileto start a 10-year panoramic survey of the heavens later this year, many of them can be found. “It is very sensitive that it will definitely choose comets in this size, perhaps more than we are,” you said.
Rubin’s wide eye should also provide us with additional information in C / 2014 itself, says Meg Schwambab, an astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast without reaching this most recent search. “Rubin looks to go in,” he said. That can help us get a better management of its activity, in association with telescopes like Alma. “You need both pieces of information – if it’s bright, and if the carbon monoxide amount changes – to tell you what’s going on,” Schwamb said.
For now Comet Un271 remains an interesting study target, a giant comet as no other gives us an extraordinary window of the dark solar system. “It’s a less exciting thing,” Roth said. And, because astronomers are eager to learn more about it and other mega comets, the best to come.
