Author: Arif Budianto

KONTAN.CO.ID – It is an active giant comet that has not yet existed, recently discovered by scientists Bernardinelli-Bernstein (BB). This giant comet was discovered by NASA astronauts using a telescope.

What is a comet? Comets, not asteroids or meteorites, contain dust and ice left over from the creation of the Solar System. When a comet is close to the Sun, some of the material produced by the comet evaporates, forming a gas head and tail.

It is this composition that activates comets. Reported from Location, The distance from the Sun where a comet is active depends mainly on the type of ice it contains. For example, water, carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide.

When it comes to comets, a new study led by astronomers University of Maryland The comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein (BB) was shown to be active. So far, the temperature of comets is so cold that the ice of water can turn into water vapor.

Nonetheless, these findings could help determine the components of the comet and provide new insights into the early conditions of the Solar System.

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The size of the Bernardinelli-Bernstein (BB) comet

Comet BB has a gigantic size that has never existed before. Early finds of the comet BB suggest that it may be up to 62 miles (100 km) in diameter.

Scientists first see this object outside the planet Uranus.

By comparison, most comets are less than a mile (1 km) wide and close to the Sun. In fact, scientists have only ever seen another comet active from the Sun, much smaller than Comet BB.

“These observations increase the distance of active comets more dramatically than we previously knew,” said Tony Farnham, the study’s lead author and astronomer. University of Maryland.

Based on data from Dark Energy Survey, An international attempt to study the sky in the Southern Hemisphere. However, the observations of the time were brilliant enough to prove it.

Instead, images taken from a recent study were used Transient Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), launched by NASA in 2018. The survey vehicle spent most of its time searching for planets orbiting nearby stars.

However, to work, the telescope captures longer exposures, which, in turn, can be used to provide a more detailed view of the sky and search for different objects.

The researchers combined thousands of images taken by TESS between 2018 and 2020 to get a clearer view of the comets and the brightness of the dust clouds around them. The researchers layered the image in such a way that the comet was deployed in each frame, revealing the comet’s coma, proving that the comet was active at the time.

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Scientists have previously seen comets working on images taken at a distance of about 20 km from the Sun. The distance of the Sun is about 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers. Imagine how far the comet is 20 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

Halley, one of the most famous comets in history, has been recorded 20 times from 239 BC. He was last seen in 1985-1986.