“That’s no moon – it’s a space station.” Not quite, Obi-Wan. In this case, it’s a comet.
An enormous comet estimated to be at least as big as the second Death Star from the original Star Wars trilogy has been spotted hurtling our way.
Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein – named after the astronomers who found it – is currently beyond the orbit of Neptune, the furthest planet from the sun. It was found by Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein, who did a deep-dive into data collected by the Dark Energy Survey’s massive telescope in the Chilean Andes.
At first they weren’t sure what it was, until another astronomer pointed a telescope in Namibia in its direction and saw it developing a coma, confirming it’s a comet.
Its estimated size is 160km across, making it easily the biggest comet ever seen in modern times – nearly three times wider than Comet Hale-Bopp and 29 times wider than Halley’s Comet. The biggest comet ever recorded was Sarabat in 1729 at 100km wide.
“That’s no moon – it’s a space station.” Not quite, Obi-Wan.
