Hubble Telescope Confirms Comet With Gigantic Nucleus

The Hubble space telescope has confirmed a comet with the largest nucleus ever discovered. Researchers believe the massive comet could have a nucleus 85 miles across. The comet in question is Brnardinelli-Bernstein, and its nucleus is about 50 times larger than the next largest known.

Scientists believe the comet is 4 billion years old and originated in the Oort cloud. Scientists leveraged the Hubble space telescope to tell the difference between the comet’s nucleus and the massive dusty shell that encompasses it.

Scientists also utilized observations from radio observatories. Using Hubble, scientists were able to observe light coming from the comet, which helped to create a model of the coma. Once the model was generated, scientists could remove it to determine the size of the nucleus itself.

Interestingly, researchers were also able to determine that the nucleus is blacker than coal. Sadly, the comet will never come close enough to earth for more detailed observations, but some of the techniques leveraged to study this comet could be used on others in the future.