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In 1996, a comet with a diameter of 160 kilometers flew from the edge of the solar system, and scientists discovered the comet and observed and studied it.
But in any case, I never imagined that this comet would be so huge, far larger than our Earth, and even nine times the diameter of our Earth.
Scientists speculated based on previous research that the comet's flight direction is the earth, the comet is fast, and the thought that this 160-kilometer behemoth is about to hit the earth, scientists immediately gave an early warning and urgently notified all countries to take all protective measures on the ground to deal with the comet's impact.
What kind of comet is this comet?
On what basis did scientists discover the comet's flight to Earth?
Could this comet hit Earth?
Scientists discovered the comet.
The comet was discovered in 1996 and had tried to orbit Neptune in the solar system, but it was not until 33 years later, in 2019, that scientists re-observed the comet due to more mature observation equipment and technology, and found that the comet had left the orbit of Neptune and flew straight towards Earth.
Because the comet is so large, scientists have not yet discovered the technical equipment and detectors that can match it, so everything about the comet is obtained by naked eye observation.
As a result, the information that can be detected is limited, so scientists can only predict the comet's orbital direction based on the observation data of the year.
However, despite the observation data of that year, the gravitational attraction between the planets will affect its orbit too far ago, so the prediction of comet's orbit has always been a difficult problem for scientists.
If there is a slight change in the orbit of a comet, then its orbit will be very different from the last predicted orbit, and the comet is too fast, so once it is lost, it will be very difficult to find the comet again.
It wasn't until 2019 that scientists re-observed the comet and found that the comet's flight direction had changed to the predicted direction of Neptune.
Based on observations and analysis of a halo of blue gas in the surrounding space by protons of gas ejected from the comet's head, scientists found that the comet did not pass through the edge of the solar system, but flew through an orbit between Earth and Mars.
Although the comet has only been observed for a few decades, the discovery of the comet shocked the entire scientific community at that time.
Because the diameter of the comet is 160 kilometers, this number is much larger than scientists predicted, and you can imagine how huge the comet is.
However, the real culprit that broke this prediction was Neptune's gravity, and scientists initially predicted that the comet would fly past the orbit of Neptune's outermost layer, Triton, but after being accelerated by Neptune's gravity, the comet's flight direction was changed, allowing the comet to fly past Neptune's orbit.
The comet did not leave Neptune's gravitational range after flying through Neptune's orbit, but was pulled back by Neptune's gravitational pull halfway through, and revolved around the Sun with Neptune, and then left Neptune's gravitational range in 1996 and flew towards Earth.
Although the speed of the comet is very fast, scientists have re-predicted the orbit of the comet, believing that the comet will reach the vicinity of the Earth in 2022, and in 2022, the comet will indeed arrive as scheduled, leaving the orbit of Mars and flying towards the Earth.
Scientists give early warnings.
At that time, the people on the earth did not know about the arrival of the comet, they were carrying out their work according to their ordinary life, living their lives carefree, and the comet's flight was not taken seriously, and scientists did not carry out corresponding early warning measures.
Finally, as the comet approached the Earth, one of the scientists' exploration satellites suddenly malfunctioned while observing the comet, and the comet's orbit appeared to be abnormal in the feedback signal of the detection satellite.
After re-observing and calculating the orbit, scientists found that the comet, which has a diameter of 160 kilometers, left the orbit of Mars and flew straight towards the Earth, and it is very likely that it will collide with the Earth when it arrives, and the head of the comet will hit the sun, and the tail will hit the Earth.
It has been calculated that when this comet hits the earth, it will release 3.8*10^27J of energy, and this energy is equivalent to the total energy of 289 million "little kings", far exceeding the firepower that the earth can withstand now.
If this comet were to crash into the Earth, the entire Earth would be destroyed and all living things would be wiped out because of this catastrophe.
Therefore, while predicting the comet's orbit in space, scientists have urgently notified various countries to take protective measures on the ground to prevent this catastrophe.
Scientists were initially worried about the comet's impact, because the comet's speed was very fast, rapidly approaching the Earth, and suddenly came to a place less than 100 million kilometers away from the Earth.
However, scientists have found that the comet did not suddenly change its speed halfway to the solar system, so the comet's speed should have reached its extreme speed, and if the comet is really going to collide with the earth, then the comet in the sky may split in half.
Fortunately, the comet was swallowed by the sun's gravity before the impact with the Earth, and the Earth was only slightly impacted, leaving only a beautiful star in the night sky, as scientists predicted.
This comet is.
Since the comet was discovered in 1996, scientists named the comet "Komert" in honor of the astronomers who discovered it at the time.
The head of the comet is also called "Komert-Young", and this comet is also the first dynamic comet discovered by mankind, and the comet circles the sun once every 90 years.
Although the diameter of this comet is 160 kilometers, because it is not very dense, for a long time, scientists can only obtain data from the naked eye.
It wasn't until 1990 that scientists had a satellite that could detect the comet, but it was very different from what was observed back then.
The comet was observed by American astronomer Robert Murphy in 1996, and the tail of the comet was discovered by British astronomer Alan Choguni.
In order to better study the comet, the United States also deliberately upgraded the previous observation equipment in 1997, which is also the largest amount of money spent by the United States on the research of the comet, costing a total of 6 billion US dollars.
Originally, this huge amount of money was planned to be used to study the ice sea on Callisto, but because of the arrival of the comet, the United States had to replace the original research program.
epilogue
Because the scientists who discovered the comet at the beginning have recalculated and predicted the comet's flight trajectory after observing the comet, there has been no natural disaster due to the comet's arrival.
Under the early warning of scientists, people have also done a good job of protective measures on the ground to prevent the arrival of this disaster.