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Dubbed Bernardinelli-Bernstein, it is thousands of times more massive than an average comet. Its close approach is a rare chance to learn more about how Earth and its neighbors were born:
Seven years ago, a pair of scientists scouring high-resolution images of space caught fleeting glimpses of a bright round object peeking from a vast cloud of icy objects more than 2 billion miles from Earth.
As if that whole scene wasn’t exciting enough, the object appeared to be a huge comet. Thought to be between 60 and 100 miles wide, it was the biggest comet a human being had ever witnessed. And it seemed to be heading toward us, very loosely speaking.
[...] Because it’s so much bigger than other known comets—the famous Hale-Bopp comet, which itself is on the larger side, measures just 37 miles across—Bernardinelli-Bernstein possesses enough gravity to hold itself together as it lazily loops through space. It’s harder to break apart.
The comet’s extreme distance from the sun also helped preserve it. “It spends most of its time in the deep freeze of the outer solar system,” Mainzer explained. Models of the megacomet’s orbit indicate it last entered our part of the solar system around 5 million years ago and got no closer than Uranus. From that distance, the sun’s heat hardly touched it.
Mainzer says that as a result, the comet she affectionately calls “BB” probably resembles the original chemical state of the nebula of gas and dust that formed our solar system about 4.5 billion years ago.
[...] It’s highly unlikely NASA or some other space agency building a probe to intercept and collect samples from Bernardinelli-Bernstein (which is ironically what NASA is currently doing with the asteroids surrounding Jupiter).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by istartedi on Tuesday October 12 2021, @06:30PM (6 children)
Do you mean 200 cm? Because 200 mm (0.2 m) is not very big.
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(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 13 2021, @02:34AM (5 children)
2) Explain how this isn't a tiny minority of people. Show your working.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 13 2021, @03:25AM
Astronomy clubs might setup viewing events for the public?
Not affiliated with any such organization, but by chance stumbled onto two separate events in two different US states. There were large looking telescopes at each event (looked like it took multiple people to move the largest of them, if for no other reason than it would have been awkward to carry). But, I don't know enough to be able to say if any were 8" or larger. The folks hosting both events were super nice, and seemed passionate about their hobby-- I bet they, and their fellows in other clubs, will have events for the comet.
It would have been neat if the comet was visible to the naked eye, though.
(Score: 1) by istartedi on Wednesday October 13 2021, @05:24AM (3 children)
You said "lame ass amateurs" which to me implies amateur astronomers who would likely be interested, not the general public. For most amateur astronomers, not being in the Southern hemisphere is the real problem, not the size of the telescope. 8" scopes are not uncommon for amateurs at all. Actually, -46 declination isn't even that bad. Antares is about -26 and I can see that from about 40 north. Any amateur astronomer living on or south of the Tropic of Cancer should have a decent chance of seeing it if they're interested.
But yes, that's a tiny minority of *the general public*.
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(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 13 2021, @06:27AM (2 children)
Indeed. A keen amateur will quite probably have upgraded from his starter 3", 4", 5", or even 6" scope to something of that light-gathering capability or better, unless he has easy access to an institution with better resources.
But what about the lame-arse amateurs, the ones I was specifically and explicitly referring to?
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(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday October 13 2021, @07:11AM (1 child)
I thought they were lame simply because they were amateurs, not because they were too poor to afford something more than a starter scope, or too anti-social to hang out with a fellow star-gazer who has bigger iron.
ie, you could be looking through a pair of opera glasses in the ghetto or through a 12-inch Schmidt with tracking from the balcony of your mansion; but you're not getting paid for that so you're a "lame ass amateur".
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(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 13 2021, @08:13AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves