It’s definitely Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein worthy of its title of “largest comet ever observed.” Discovered in 2014, it only received this qualification in 2021, without its dimensions being precisely determined. Since the beginning of April 2022, this mystery is to be solved.
In fact, the Hubble Telescope was mobilized for scientific operation to make this measurement. Located above the earth’s atmosphere, it spares humans from light pollution and other disturbing phenomena. According to the New York Times, “The comet’s nucleus could be as much as 137 kilometers in diameter.” Its mass could be 500,000 billion tons, or “2,800 Mount Everest,” specifies the American daily.
according to scientists We won’t be able to see this comet in the sky until 2031 and have a sufficiently “close” passage to Earth. But do not panic, the celestial object does not threaten humanity, assure the specialists. In a little less than ten years, Bernardinelli-Bernstein should approach Saturn before returning to the limits of the universe.
“More secrets of the comet will be revealed as it approaches Saturn’s orbit,” the astronomers predict, quoted by American media. However, The list of information gathered will be thin. Scientists currently suspect that the comet came from the (very) unknown Oort Cloud. A kind of bubble “unobservable at the moment, located around the solar system and filled with primitive ice chips of various sizes and shapes”.
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