The Comet
It was on the 20th day of October back in the year 2014 that the discovery of the Megacomet C/2014 UN271 [1], also known as Bernardinelli-Berstein, was made. The Hubble Space Telescope has just recently confirmed that it is the largest comet ever seen, with its icy nucleus stretching 129 kilometers across [2]. Scientists have speculated its grandness, which is 500 trillion tons and a hundred thousand times greater than the mass of any typical comet [3], due to the intensifying brightness it has been giving off at such a large distance away. The great white light is so dazzlingly bright that it could almost make a grown man like myself believe in something bigger than just this three-dimensional realm in which we live in.
The detection of this comet was an extremely unusual circumstance. The cosmologists that made the discovery were studying a completely different class of objects called trans-Neptunian objects, also known as TNOs. These are masses of rock that circulate the Sun but remain further beyond Neptune’s orbit [4], which is 150 million kilometers in distance from the Sun, around 30 times the Earth’s average distance. However, when viewing these TNOs, the cosmologists found an object that was tens of thousands of astronomical units from the Sun, which rarely ever happens since most TNOs never stray farther from the Sun than a few hundred astronomical units.
This comet was spotted in data called the Dark Energy Survey. Dark energy is a mysterious substance that is believed to make up 68% of the universe while also warping our view of other galaxies [5]. This massive comet showed up in 20 separate images allowing the cosmologists to identify it and claim it as it is known now, the Bernardinelli-Berstein Megacomet.
Since this discovery is of the utmost importance, I often like to close my eyes just to picture the deafening silence of the solar system mixing with the oscillations in the magnetic field that surround the comet. Trying to envision the full sense of this gigantic comet helps me to spread the word of this discovery more sufficiently. However, the bitterness of disgust seems to linger in my mouth anytime I try to warn people that it will be ‘passing’ Earth in 2031, yet all they do is continue on with their lives as if this scientific information isn’t revolutionary. Not only is this the largest comet discovered, but it is also a return visitor from the collisions of space rocks [6] that just so happened to create this planet in which we live on. If that news isn’t mind grappling, the elements constructed within the comet will also give scientists the extraordinary opportunity to learn more about Earth and the solar system.
When the changing atmosphere that will violently hit my nose in a few years signals to me that the comet is near, I will also be hoping that the destruction of a world isn’t following suit. Since the low-frequency radio waves that are whirling at the speed of light in which the comet radiates will make the planet’s surface rumble, it will leave no other option but for nature to become disrupted, dooming us all.
As the comet grows nearer to Earth, the velocity of speed at which it hurls toward our planet will violently increase. This rapidity will undoubtedly affect the Earth’s crust and will shift the tectonic plates within. The energy that will be released in waves because of this will travel through the ground, causing the rumbling that we call earthquakes. While the shifting of tectonic plates will cause earthquakes, it will also send molten rock rising to the surface, starting volcanic eruptions. As a side effect of the earthquakes, due to the converging tectonic plate boundaries, tsunamis will also form. And as if we don’t already have a plethora of worrying to do with climate change as it is now, the massive amount of heat that emulates off of this comet will also send temperatures skyrocketing. The most detrimental part of this comet is that the ice contained within it is made up of carbon monoxide [7], which is fatally poisonous to us humans. This is why I say the disruption of nature due to the Megacomet will doom us all.
[1] (Jonathan Chadwick For Mailonline)
[2] (Gohd)
[3] (Gianopoulos)
[4] (Bartels)
[5] (Bartels)
[6] (Gianopoulos)
[7] (Jonathan Chadwick For Mailonline)
Works Cited
Bartels, Meghan. “The ‘Megacomet’ Bernardinelli-Bernstein Is the Find of a Decade. Here’s the Discovery Explained.” Space.com, Space, 7 Sept. 2021, www.space.com/giant-comet-bernardinelli-bernstein-discovery-size-activity.
Gianopoulos, Andrea. “Hubble Confirms Largest Comet Nucleus Ever Seen.” NASA, NASA, 6 Apr. 2022, www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/hubble-confirms-largest-comet-nucleus-ever-seen.
Gohd, Chelsea. “Hubble Confirms Megacomet Bound for Inner Solar System Is Largest Ever Seen.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 14 Apr. 2022, www.scientificamerican.com/article/hubble-confirms-megacomet-bound-for-inner-solar-system-is-largest-ever-seen/.
Jonathan Chadwick For Mailonline. “‘Megacomet’ That Is 100 TIMES More Massive than a Typical Comet Is among the Most Distant Ice Balls with an Active Stream of Dust and Gas around It, Study Claims.” MailOnline (London, England), 30 Nov. 2021. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohostcom.ezproxylocal.library.nova.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsnbk&AN=18699AF413EE7290&site=eds-live.
Janelle Giannetta, age 21, is a senior attending Nova Southeastern University who originates from northern New Jersey. She majors in English with three minors in Writing, Journalism, and Political Science. She has been writing since she was a child in elementary school when she first discovered her love for the art. Janelle already has a short story published in an anthology, is published as a poet in her school’s literary journal Digressions, and has edited two books thus far. She plans to pursue her MFA in Creative Writing to further her abilities and inspire her even more!