Celestial object identified as a 'Mega Comet' enters the Solar System

Astronomers have discovered an object, bigger than a comet, on the outskirts of the Solar System. The object named as 2014 UN271, is expected to make a close pass by the Sun. The comet was observed in data from the Dark Energy Survey conducted between 2014 and 2018.

Astronomers discover comet in the solar system

The discovery was announced on June 19, using data from the NASA-funded Minor Planet Center’s Minor Planet Electronic Circulars (MPECs). The size of the object is estimated to be from 100 to 370 km wide, which makes it too large to be called a comet. Hence, it is referred to as a mega comet. The comet 2014 UN271 is expected to pass by the Sun by 2031 bringing it closest to Saturn’s orbit, reported by Weather.com. The object discovered through a Dark Energy Survey was approximately 29 AU from the sun.  

The comet was approximately 29 AU away from the Sun when it was first spotted in 2014. Since then, it has moved one AU every year in the last seven years. At present, the 2014 UN271 is located about 22 astronomical units (AU) away from the Sun, with one AU being equivalent to the distance between the Earth and our host star. The object takes around 6,12,190 years to complete one orbit. The comet will close to Sun by 2031. 

Meanwhile, astronomers in March found that the interstellar comet – 21/Borisov may be the most pristine galactic object when observed from outside the solar system, the data from the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed. The comet, which is speculated to have arrived from a red dwarf star, became the first confirmed interstellar object to pass through the Earth’s solar system last year. Observed by Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), the first confirmed comet to enter our solar system was found heavily composed of carbon monoxide and had had differing characteristics compared with the comets of Earth’s solar system, NASA’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) found.

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