A comet about the size of a small planet, and previously mistaken as a planet, is headed toward our solar system, and scientists expect it to be here in about 10 years.
Bernardinelli-Bernstein is estimated to be about 60-120 miles long, roughly 1,000 times larger than traditional comets; however, it poses no threat to Earth as it’s expected to fly past the sun in 2031 at about 10.71 astronomical units (995,556,695.83 miles).
“We have the privilege of having discovered perhaps the largest comet ever seen — or at least larger than any well-studied one — and caught it early enough for people to watch it evolve as it approaches and warms up,” Gary Bernstein of the University of Pennsylvania said, who discovered the object with colleague Pedro Bernardinelli.
Bernstein said Vera C. Rubin Observatory “will continuously measure Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein all the way to its perihelion in 2031, and probably find many, many others like it.”
Source: NSF’s Noirlab.edu
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