Two astronomers have discovered the largest comet ever seen in the Solar System. The comet was discovered while the two were combing through data collected by the Dark Energy Survey.
Quoted from Cnet, the comet is cataloged as Comet C/2014 UN271, but is also known as Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its discoverers, Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein. Both are from the University of Pennsylvania.
If you are curious about how big this comet is to be called a giant, the initial estimates of Bernardinelli and Bernstein say the comet has a diameter of up to 200 kilometers.
But when the study was submitted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the estimated width of the diameter was set to be "only" 150 kilometers. This size still indicates the comet is a giant. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein has a mass 10 times that of Comet Hale-Bopp, known as the Great Comet of 1997.
Meanwhile, astronomer Will Gater put together many illustrations of other famous Solar System objects to record the scale of just how big this giant ball in space really is.
Reading @phbernardinelli's tweets this morning I was trying to get my head around just how big Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein (aka C/2014 UN271) is.
So here's a graphic I've just made to show an (edited) @NOIRLabAstro illo of it in comparison to some other Solar System objects. pic.twitter.com/sx9MWkavxv
— Will Gater (@willgater) September 22, 2021
The comparison results are even more surprising. This mega comet turned out to be much larger than Mars' largest moon. If we imagine placing two of Mars' moons, Phobos and Deimos, next to Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, it will be seen that this comet is twice the size of Phobos and Deimos.
According to researchers, this huge comet poses no threat of colliding with Earth and causing an event like the age of dinosaur extinction. However, the comet is currently heading towards the inner Solar System and will make its closest trajectory to our Sun in 2031.
This comet is likely to put on a pretty good show for astronomers in the coming decades. In fact, since now Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein has begun to show off its appearance with the explosion and brightness-enhancing activity reported by the Las Cumbres Observatory earlier this month.