{"id":282491,"date":"2021-06-23T21:06:23","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T18:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/mega-comet-discovered-flying-into-solar-system-scientists\/"},"modified":"2021-06-23T21:06:23","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T18:06:23","slug":"mega-comet-discovered-flying-into-solar-system-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/mega-comet-discovered-flying-into-solar-system-scientists\/","title":{"rendered":"#\u2018Mega comet\u2019 discovered flying into solar system: scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#\u2018Mega comet\u2019 discovered flying into solar system: scientists<\/strong>”
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Astronomers\u00a0have reportedly discovered that a large object moving from the outer reaches of the\u00a0solar system\u00a0will app<\/a>roach as close as\u00a0Saturn\u2019s\u00a0orbit in the next decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0comet, known as 2014 UN271, was first discovered by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) \u2013 an international collaborative project started in 2013 that is listed as working at\u00a0Chile\u2019s\u00a0Victor Blanco Telescope and was founded with the purpose of mapping galaxies, detecting supernovae and uncovering mysteries about dark energy.<\/p>\n

The discovery was announced on June 19,\u00a0using data from the NASA-funded Minor Planet Center\u2019s Minor Planet Electronic Circulars (MPECs)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to scientists on social media<\/a>, the hunk of rock and ice has an estimated diameter of\u00a0around 130 to 370 kilometers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some qualified\u00a02014 UN271<\/a>\u00a0as the size of a small dwarf\u00a0planet, though Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomer\u00a0Jonathan McDowell<\/a>\u00a0questioned that analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSeems like maybe a tad too small to qualify as dwarf planet?\u201d he wrote on Twitter. \u201cVery cool nevertheless.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Interesting discovery: 2014 UN271- a 100 km object from DECam.
Perihelion 2031 Jan 28
a = 5416.99752 +\/- 228 AU
e = 0.9979808 +\/- 8.56e-5
Incl. 95.53003 +\/- 0.00023
Period = 398692 years!
H = 7.8
q = 10.9377353 +\/- 0.000814 AU
Q = 10823.0573 +\/- 459 AU<\/p>\n

\u2014 T. Marshall Eubanks (@TM_Eubanks) June 19, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

An image of the\u00a0Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO)<\/a>\u00a0posted by University of Pennsylvania astronomer Pedro Bernardinelli showed a large, white and pixelated blob, which he said was comprised of several DES images taken over a period of years between 2014 and 2018.<\/p>\n

The \u201cmega-comet\u2019s\u201d<\/a>\u00a0orbit has been updated<\/a>\u00a0a few times, but is extremely long \u2013 hundreds of billions of kilometers from the\u00a0sun\u00a0\u2013 and takes approximately 600,000 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the given absolute magnitude and given how exceptionally red it looked in 2014 precovery images from CFHT (the g \u2013 r color was 0.9 and r \u2013 i was 0.5!) I would estimate at an albedo of 0.01-0.08 a diameter of 130-370 kilometers (nominally 160) which puts it on a similar scale, if not larger than, Sarabat\u2019s huge comet C\/1729 P1 and almost undoubtedly the largest Oort Cloud object ever discovered- almost in dwarf planet territory!\u201d Sam Deen, a citizen astronomer, said\u00a0in a post on the Minor Planet Mailing List (MPML) forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The object showed no coma in any of the (5 band) DES images between 2014-2018 (when it moved from 29 to 23 au). The residuals of a scene-modeling photometry of this objects shows consistency with noise (both in each image and in a stack of all 30 something images we have) pic.twitter.com\/7JIibMPyZS<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Dr. Pedro Bernardinelli (@phbernardinelli) June 20, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cI have little doubt in my mind that as this gets closer to the sun, it will begin displaying the coma and tail typical of every other object yet seen in its orbit,\u201d Deen wrote.<\/p>\n

Deen noted that, based on its magnitude, 2014 UN271 will be \u201cimpressively bright\u201d \u2013 though\u00a0The Weather Channel pointed out<\/a>\u00a0it will be \u201cimpossible\u201d to see without a telescope \u00a0\u2013 before it hurls back into the dark sky.\n <\/div>\n