A team of New Zealand astronomers have detected, for the first time, activity on the megacomet C / 2014 UN271, perhaps the most massive comet discovered in human history. Experts saw coma signs, the gas and dust spread zone, marking the first time they saw it as an active comet since it was first detected by the Dark Energy Survey.
Located at a distance of about 19 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, the comet is between 100 and 300 kilometers wide , making it almost the size of a small dwarf planet. Given the size of the comet’s nucleus, which is believed to be the largest since Comet Hale-Bopp was discovered in 1995, it has a lot of mass to heat. It is thousands of times more massive than any ordinary comet.
The core comes from the confines of the solar system
The equipment that monitors the images captured by the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) is scattered around the world , and images from one of LCO’s 1-meter telescopes housed at the South African Astronomical Observatory were available on June 23 at the midnight. At first glance, they thought that the new images presented blurred vision due to an error, thanks to the ever-present problem of satellites passing through the field of view of telescopes. But … then they realized that it was clear enough: there was activity in the images.
“The first image had the comet obscured by a satellite line and my heart sank. But then the others were clear enough and my goodness: there it was, definitely a beautiful little fuzzy dot, nothing sharp like its neighboring stars! “explains Michele Bannister, an astronomer at the University of Canterbury, excited by the find.
“Since the new object was far to the south and was quite faint, we knew that there would not be many other telescopes that could observe it,” said Tim Lister, an astronomer at Las Cumbres Observatory. “Fortunately, the Las Cumbres Observatory has a network of robotic telescopes around the world, particularly in the southern hemisphere, and we were able to quickly obtain images from the telescopes at the Las Cumbres Observatory in South Africa .”
Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is not expected to shine with the naked eye: it will remain a telescopic object because its closest distance to the Sun will continue to be beyond Saturn. It will reach its closest approach to the Sun in January 2031.
Thus, in 2031, scientists predict that C / 2014 UN271 will be the same distance from the Sun as Saturn, which will be its closest approach to Earth for the first time in about 600,000 years.
At that point, telescopes around the world and in space, along with any nearby spacecraft, will observe the comet to learn as much as possible about its composition and history.
“Now there are a lot of studios, like the Zwicky Transient Facility and the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory, that are monitoring parts of the sky every night,” Lister clarifies. “These studies can provide alerts if one of the comets suddenly changes brightness,” he added. “We can then activate LCO’s robotic telescopes to get more detailed data and a longer look at the changing comet as the survey moves to other areas of the sky .”
Reference: Las Cumbres Observatory in Sutherland, South Africa.
