NASA has received confirmation regarding the discovery of the largest comet nucleus ever observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Comet C/2014 UN271 was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein via archival images from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The nucleus of the massive comet spans 85 miles in diameter – roughly 50 times the average size – with a mass of 500 trillion tons.
By using Hubble observations and modeling to isolate the nucleus from the comet’s tail, a new analysis calculated the size of C/2014 in the highest resolution yet. David Jewitt, professor of planetary science and astronomy at UCLA, is a co-author of the new study.
“The comet is literally the tip of the iceberg for many thousands of comets that are too faint to see in the distant parts of the solar system. We’ve always suspected this comet had to be big because it is so bright at such a large distance. Now we confirm it is.”
According to NASA, the comet has been falling towards the Sun for well over a million years. C/2014 was first observed in November 2010 when it was three billion miles from the Sun. It is now heading towards Earth at a speed of 22,000 mph. Fortunately, NASA says the comet will never get any closer than 1 billion miles away from the Sun. It’ll likely reach this location, which is just slightly further than Saturn, by 2031.
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The previous record for the largest comet observed was 60 miles in diameter, held by comet C/2002 VQ94.
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