Never-before-seen Comet En Route To Approaching The Sun

Illustrations (NASA JPL doc. Via slashgear.com)

JAKARTA - The surprising news came from astronomers who discovered something in the universe. This object is claimed to have never been seen before, and was confirmed to be a comet.

Reporting from Slashgear, Tuesday, June 29, the new object is known to come from the Oort Cloud and was officially designated as a comet on Wednesday, June 23, 2021. The research comes a week after the comet was seen as a tiny moving dot in images archived by the Dark Energy Camera.

The comet actually has the official name Comet C/2014 UN271, but was nicknamed Bernardinelli-Bernstein by its discoverers, University of Pennsylvania graduate student Pedro Bernardinelli and astronomer Gary Bernstein. So far, scientists have learned some interesting information about the comet, which is believed to be 62 miles wide.

The comet's distance is claimed to be 20 times that of Earth-Sun. It will reach its closest point to the Sun on January 23, 2031. At that time, it will be just outside Saturn's orbit, placing it about 10.95 distances from the Sun from Earth.

Likewise, its orbits are vertical to the plane of the other planets, and at their farthest from Earth, they are about a light year from the Sun. Scientists believe comets and other celestial bodies from the Oort Cloud may have once been part of the Solar System but were kicked in by gravitational interactions with larger planets like Saturn and Neptune.

Seeing this, of course, astronomers are excited because they have about two decades to study the comet before it disappears for another 5.5 million years. The comet is thought to be nearly pure, and astronomers from all over the world will be ready to observe it