Then, the glow of the coma was subtracted to leave behind the starlike nucleus. Hui and his team next made a computer model of the surrounding coma and adjusted it to fit the Hubble images. While the comet is currently too far away for its nucleus to be visually resolved by Hubble, the data did show a bright spike of light at the nucleus’ location. This allowed for the coma to be subtracted, unveiling the point-like glow from the nucleus.Ĭredits: NASA, ESA, Man-To Hui (Macau University of Science and Technology), David Jewitt (UCLA) Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)Īs with any comet, the challenge comes in trying to measure the solid nucleus while it is enveloped in a huge dusty coma. A model of the coma (middle panel) was obtained by means of fitting the surface brightness profile assembled from the observed image on the left. On the left is a photo of the comet taken by the NASA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 on January 8, 2022. ![]() This sequence shows how the nucleus of Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) was isolated from a vast shell of dust and gas surrounding the solid icy nucleus. And still, only large telescopes will be able to see it – it likely won’t be visible to the naked eye. It will never get closer than 1.6 billion km (1 billion miles) away from the Sun, slightly farther than the distance of the planet Saturn. “We guessed the comet might be pretty big, but we needed the best data to confirm this.” So, his team used Hubble to take five photos of the comet on January 8, 2022.Ĭ/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) is moving in the direction towards the Sun from the outer Solar System at about 35,400 kilometers per hour (22,000 mph) But, astronomers say, don’t worry. “This is an amazing object, given how active it is when it’s still so far from the Sun,” said Man-To Hui of the Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macau, lead author on a new paper on the comet. Its mass is estimated to be a staggering 500 trillion tons, a hundred thousand times greater than the mass of a typical comet found much closer to the Sun. The nucleus is about 50 times larger than other known comets. NASA said a team of scientists has now estimated the diameter is approximately 129 km (80 miles) across, making it larger than the state of Rhode Island. ![]() The gargantuan comet was discovered in the fall of 2021, and in January 2022, astronomers turned the Hubble Space Telescope to ascertain more details and determine the exact size. Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) has the largest nucleus ever seen in a comet.
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