An unusual volcanic comet flying toward the sun appears to have “grown horns” after it exploded, causing it to shine like a small star and shower supercold “magma” into space. It’s the primary time this comet has been seen erupting in almost 70 years.
The comet, named 12P/Pons-Brooks (12P), is a cryovolcanic — or cold volcano — comet. Like all other comets, the icy object is made up of a solid nucleus, crammed with a combination of ice, dust and gas, and is surrounded by a fuzzy cloud of gas called a coma, which leaks out of the comet’s interior. But unlike most other comets, the gas and ice inside 12P’s nucleus construct up a lot that the celestial object can violently explode, shooting out its frosty guts, often known as cryomagma, through large cracks within the nucleus’s shell.
On July 20, multiple astronomers detected a significant outburst from the comet, which suddenly became around 100 times brighter than it often appears, Spaceweather.com reported. This increase in brightness occurred when the comet’s coma suddenly swelled up with gas and ice crystals released from the comet’s interior, allowing it to reflect more sunlight back to Earth.
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As of July 26, the comet’s coma had grown to around 143,000 miles (230,000 kilometers) across, or greater than 7,000 times wider than its nucleus, which has an estimated diameter of around 18.6 miles (30 km), Richard Miles, an astronomer with the British Astronomical Association who studies cryovolcanic comets, told Live Science in an email.
But interestingly, an irregularity in the form of the expanded coma makes the comet look as if it has sprouted horns. Other experts have also likened the deformed comet to the Millennium Falcon, one in every of the enduring spaceships from Star Wars, Spaceweather.com reported.
The bizarre shape of the comet’s coma is probably going attributable to an irregularity in the form of 12P’s nucleus, Miles said. The outflowing gas was likely partially obstructed by an out-sticking lobe on the nucleus, which created a “notch” within the expanded coma. Because the gas continued to maneuver away from the comet and grow, the notch, or “shadow,” became more noticeable, he added. However the expanded coma will eventually disappear because the gas and ice becomes too dispersed to reflect sunlight.
That is the primary major eruption detected from 12P in 69 years, Miles said, mainly because its orbit takes it too distant from Earth for its outbursts to be noticed.
12P has one in every of the longest known orbital periods of any comet. It takes around 71 years for the floating volcano to completely orbit the sun, during which era it’s catapulted out to the farthest reaches of the solar system. The comet is attributable to reach its closest point to the sun on April 21, 2024 and make its closest approach to Earth on June 2, 2024, at which point it would be visible within the night sky, Spaceweather.com reported. Earthlings could, subsequently, get a front-row seat to more eruptions over the subsequent few years.
But 12P is just not the one volcanic comet researchers have their eyes on straight away. Over the past few years, there have been several notable eruptions from 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann (29P) — essentially the most volatile volcanic comet within the solar system.
In December 2022, astronomers witnessed the biggest eruption from 29P in around 12 years, which sprayed around 1 million tons of cryomagma into space. And in April this yr, for the primary time ever, scientists were capable of accurately predict one in every of 29P’s eruptions before it actually happened, due to a slight increase in brightness, which suggested more gas was leaking out of the comet’s nucleus because it prepared to pop.