The giant comet could be “as wide as 85 miles” and has been determined to be the size of the “largest frozen comet core” astronomers have ever seen, according to NASA. The comet, or “C / 2014 UN271”, was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on Tuesday. “This is an amazing object, given how active it is when it is still so far from the Sun,” study lead author Mac-University of Science and Technology Man-To Hui told NASA in a press release. “We guessed the comet might be big enough, but we needed the best data to confirm it.” His team used Hubble to take five photos on January 8 and managed to capture a “bright spike of light” in place of the comet’s core. Combined with radio telescope data, they were able to calculate the size of the giant comet. The photo on the left shows the image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The coma (middle frame) was obtained by adjusting the brightness profile of the surface assembled from the left image. The coma was removed and revealed the nucleus in the third photo (right). SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, Man-To Hui (Macau University of Science and Technology), David Jewitt (UCLA) IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI) The comet travels 22,000 miles per hour since the end of the solar system and is now less than 2 billion miles from the sun, NASA said. But scientists have said it will never approach the sun more than 1 billion miles and will not reach there until 2031. David Juitt, a professor of planetary science and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles, co-authored the study. He told the press release that the discovery of the comet could be a sign for more in the future. “This comet is literally the tip of the iceberg for the many thousands of comets that are too dim to see in the most remote parts of the solar system,” Jewiitt said. “We always suspected that this comet had to be big because it is so bright at such a distance. Now we confirm that it is.” The comet was first spotted in 2010 when it was 3 billion miles from the sun, NASA said. The body says the comet has been heading for the sun for more than 1 million years and comes from the “Oort Cloud”, a theoretical ground for trillions of comets. It is estimated that NASA’s Voyager spacecraft will not reach the Oort cloud for another 300 years and may take up to 30,000 years to pass, NASA said.——

Christopher Brito

Christopher Brito is a social media producer and CBS News columnist focusing on sports and racial and cultural issues.