Two astronomers discover a comet that may be the largest ever in history. Pedro Bernardelli and Gary Bernstein, from the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, discovered this giant in mid-June this year.
Other scientists even observed the same rocky object in space in 2014, but were unable to confirm that it was a comet based on the data collected.
The star is between 100 and 200 kilometers in diameter, and has a mass a thousand times greater than the mass of most comets ever studied. Halley, one of the most famous comets for the general population, for example, has a diameter of about 5.6 kilometers.
According to the US space agency NASA, there is no danger that Comet Bernardelli-Bernstein, as it was called, will collide with Earth. However, the potential impact on the planet’s surface could cause anything from climate change to wipe out humanity.
The asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was 11 kilometers in diameter and formed a 200-kilometer crater at the crash site.
A real spectacle could happen until 2031, when the celestial body crosses the inner solar system, the region where Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars orbit, because this will be the first time it has come close to the sun in millions of years.
With information from the Portal R7.
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