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#Massive, record-breaking comet is hurtling toward Earth

“Massive, record-breaking comet is hurtling toward Earth”

The largest comet ever recorded has Earth in its sights.

But don’t worry: It won’t lead to an extinction-level event.

Measuring an estimated 80 miles across, its icy core is 50 times larger than that of any known comets in history, while its mass — about 500 trillion tons — is still 100,000 times more massive than our typical passing comets, according to new findings published Wednesday in the Astrophysical Journal.

Intimidatingly described by one researcher as “big” and “blacker than coal,” the comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein (C/2014 UN271) has spent the past million years hurtling 22,000 miles per hour towards the center of our solar system and is expected to reach just short of Saturn’s orbit by 2031.

However, the record-breaking Bernardinelli-Bernstein is projected to slingshot back towards the Oort Cloud — where it originally hails from — before it reaches Saturn, scientists assure.

The comet made its grand debut in November 2010, when it was still about 3 billion miles from the sun, or about the distance to Neptune. Considering the way it lit up telescopes even then researchers knew it was big, but a new study has revealed a clearer picture of just how enormous Bernardinelli-Bernstein really is, thanks to images provided by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the ALMA telescope in Chile.

comet C/2014 UN271
The new findings published in the Astrophysical Journal provide a clearer picture of the size of the icy nucleus of C/2014 UN271, the comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein.
Man-To Hui et al 2022 ApJL

Bernardinelli-Bernstein is a billions-of-years-old relic from the chaotic origins of our solar system. Scientists believe it holds clues to the mysterious region of space far beyond Pluto, some 4.6 trillion miles from the sun. Comets of the Oort Cloud are also believed to have been formed much close to our sun before getting thrown out to the far reaches of our solar system — bound for eternity to feel the pull of their former home.

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