Largest Comet Ever Discovered Is Returning To Solar System After 3.5 Million Years

A comet that experts believe is the largest one ever to be detected is now entering the inner solar system with an estimated arrival time of 10 years.?

Representational Image: NASA

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Reported first by Live Science, this is based on a study published in preprint server arXiv.org, by Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein, of the University of Pennsylvania. The comet is also named after them as Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein (C/2014 UN271).?

The comet is at least 100 kilometres across and a good 1000 times larger than a typical comet. In fact, it was so massive that astronomers first thought it was a dwarf planet. However, a bit more in-depth analysis highlighted that it was actually moving quite rapidly through the Oort cloud.

The comet was spotted to even have a massive, glowing tail (coma) behind it, indicating that the icy comet was moving towards the relatively warm inner solar system.

In case you were wondering if this comet poses any threat to Earth, it doesn’t. As of now, it’s travelling at 29 astronomical units (AU) -- where each AU is the distance between Earth and Sun.

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It would make its closest approach to Earth sometime in the year 2031 when it’ll be at 10.97 AU, right outside Saturn’s orbit, say researchers. In fact, it’ll be so far that humans would be only able to witness it with the help of telescopes.?

Representational Image: NASA

However, that isn’t to say that the comet will always be this far from Earth, as the comet is actually fairly closer than its previous visit.?

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Based on a simulated trajectory of the comet, authors discovered that comet BB made its last appearance around 3.5 million years ago at a distance of 18 AU. However, since then it has also travelled as far as 40,000 AU into the Oort cloud.

Researchers concluded that BB is a ‘new comet’ meaning that humans have never laid their eyes on it before. That's definitely an exciting moment from an astronomical perspective.

Let us know in the comments below if you're excited about the possibility of knowing more about this comet visitor to our solar system, and keep reading latest science and technology news on Indiatimes.com as usual.?