A massive icy comet emanating from the trans-Plutonian depths of our solar system is on a course to travel closer to earth than any comet of similar size – at least, so far as scientists have been able to tell.
The comet, known as C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), has a frozen nucleus that measures 80 miles across and is 50x bigger than the core of most comets that travel toward the inner area of our solar system.
The NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft recorded the moment a comet slammed into the Sun, according to Space Weather astronomer Tony Phillips.
Phillips recorded the anomaly in the center of the solar system last week. He described the situation as follows: “a dirty snowball dived right into the Sun.”
A video titled “Comet’s Death Dive Into Sun Snapped by SOHO Spacecraft” was uploaded onto YouTube by Space.com on Friday. The short video shows the comet in the bottom right of the screen traveling towards the round disk in the middle of the screen, otherwise known as the Sun, slams into the Sun’s surface around the 18-second mark. On top of the Sun is Venus, and left of center is Mars.
OK, so intelligent life elsewhere in the universe has been discussed here several times. But, this is big, really big.
From The Daily Mail (link at bottom), but carried by newspapers and science mags all over the world, …
“A cigar-shaped comet named ‘Oumuamua’ sailed past Earth last month and is the first interstellar object seen in the solar system. …… Researchers say they are looking for radio signals, claiming the mysterious visitor could be an alien spaceship!
