The Hubble Space Telescope photographed the icy core of a comet moving towards the solar system. Its diameter is almost 137 kilometers – a new record among never seen comets.

“This comet is literally the tip of the iceberg among the thousands of comets that are too small to be seen in the distant parts of the solar system. We have always suspected that this comet must be huge because it remains bright at such a great distance. Now we confirm that this is the case, ”said researcher David Jewitt from the University of California at Los Angeles.

This comet was first discovered in 2010. The celestial body, named C/2014 UN271, attracted astronomers with its brightness, although it was almost 5 billion kilometers from the Sun. Such large comets have a shell of dust that surrounds their nucleus, making it difficult to detect. Together with the Hubble, ground-based telescopes also observed this comet: images were combined with data on radio magnetic radiation to determine the size and mass. Then it was compared with computer models. Scientists suggest that the diameter of the comet’s nucleus reaches almost 137 kilometers, and its weight is 500 trillion tons.

At this second, the comet is moving towards our galaxy at a speed of 35,000 km/h. However, experts clarify that C / 2014 UN271 will not be closer to the Sun than the orbit of Saturn.