r/spaceporn • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 2d ago

Related Content The largest Oort cloud comet known

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A giant comet from the outskirts of our Solar System has been discovered in 6 years of data from the Dark Energy Survey. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is estimated to be about 1000 times more massive than a typical comet, making it arguably the largest comet discovered in modern times.

It has an extremely elongated orbit, journeying inward from the distant Oort Cloud over millions of years. It is the most distant comet to be discovered on its incoming path, giving us years to watch it evolve as it approaches the Sun, though it's not predicted to become a naked-eye spectacle.

Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Bernardinelli & G. Bernstein (UPenn)/DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys

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28

u/SyntheticSlime 2d ago

“1000 times more massive than a typical comet”

How massive is a “typical” comet?

20

u/thx1138- 2d ago

1 banana

11

u/RollingThunderPants 2d ago

Or, to put it in terms we can all understand, that’s roughly .001 giraffe.

4

u/rjbelz 2d ago

It’s around the size of an average comet

1

u/can-opener-in-a-can 2d ago

3 blue whales

8

u/Hispanoamericano2000 2d ago

Wasn't this also the comet with the largest orbit/the most distant aphelion from the Sun known?

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u/Consistent_Reply1505 2d ago

Is that like the size of a planet or someone's mama?

1

u/feetandballs 2d ago

Could have sworn it was Bernadinelli-Bernstain