The massive comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, resembling a mobile ice volcano, erupted intensely for the second time on its journey toward the Sun.
Live Science reported that 12P/Pons-Brooks drew attention for its peculiar pair of horns protruding from its massive “body.”
On July 20, a tremendous explosion blew these horns away. The explosion took the form of an “ice volcano” and was so powerful that it expanded its coma to 230,000 km in diameter, over 7,000 times larger than the comet’s nucleus.
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks – Image: Comet Chasers/Richard Miles
The coma, also known as the “comet’s head,” is the beautiful halo that surrounds comets as they approach the Sun, causing the icy material of the comet to vaporize.
In observations from October 2023, another eruption of the “ice volcano” was recorded by the British Astronomical Association (BAA), making the comet shine many times brighter than usual.
A few days later, its coma continued to expand, and a new set of peculiar horns continued to grow, as reported by Spaceweather.com.
Some experts humorously remarked that the unusual shape of the coma made this comet look like a spaceship from a science fiction film, for instance, the Millennium Falcon in “Star Wars.”
According to astronomer Richard Miles from BAA, the peculiar shape of the coma could be due to irregular outgassing from the comet’s nucleus.
12P/Pons-Brooks is racing toward the Sun in an elliptical orbit that lasts 71 years around our parent star.
12P/Pons-Brooks will come closest to Earth on April 21, 2024. With its brightness and enormous size, we can observe it with the naked eye. It won’t visit us again until 2095.