Astronomers are faced with another phenomenon that is poorly explained. July 20 of the current year 12p/Ponca-Brooks comet suddenly sharply increased its brightness. The gas and dust it emitted by it took the bizarre shape of the horseshoe, which is why the comet began to resemble the “Millennium Falcon” star from the film outstanding “Star Wars”.
The 12p/Ponca-Brooks comet has been known for more than 200 years, its period of circulation around the Sun is a little over 70 years old and earlier it has not attracted special attention of scientists. Now everything is different – not only did the comet suddenly take an unusual form, her rapprochement with the sun will occur shortly after a complete sunny eclipse. This will happen on June 2, 2024.
The unusual brightness of the comet is explained by a sharp increase in the area of its train, which reflects the light. But where did the material come from for this increase? The most logical version is ice crystals formed from the water that escaped from the bowels of the comet. The difficulty is that the transfer of liquid water by comets still remains only a hypothesis, although a promising.
As Dr. Edward Gomez from the Las Cumbres Observatory in Wales explained, most comets are the peers of the solar system. These are the remnants of the protomateria that hung in the Oort cloud, but from time to time arrive from there closer to our star. It is likely that ancient comets may contain materials that are the basis of life on Earth, they also distributed them throughout the solar system. When the 12p/Ponca-Brooks comet is as close as possible, scientists will try to understand its properties.
Source — Business Insider