However, we should not worry as the nearest that will reach is more than a billion kilometers from the sun and this will not be until 2031, although it will be visible from our planet. The aforementioned comet was first spotted in 2010, but now Hubble has confirmed its size and is larger than any comet astronomers have seen in the past. “We always suspected that this comet must have been large because it is so bright at such a distance,” said David Jewitt, a professor of planetary science and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Now we confirm that it is. This comet is literally the tip of the iceberg for the many thousands of comets that are too dim to see in the most remote parts of the solar system.”
How did this comet enter the Solar System?
The comet was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey at the Cerro Tololo Observatory in Chile, according to the space agency. Comets are described by NASA as frozen, planetary “Lego blocks”. “They were unintentionally thrown out of the Solar System in a gravitational pinball game between the vast outer planets,” NASA said in a statement. “The comets that were launched were installed in the Oort Cloud, a huge pool of distant comets that surround the Solar System.” Man-To Hui, of Macau University of Science and Technology, said: “They guessed the comet might be big enough, but we needed the best data to confirm it.” “This is an amazing object, given how active it is when it is still so far from the sun,” he added.
