A massive eruption of an icy volcanic comet discovered in the solar system
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A bizarre, volcanic comet has violently erupted, spewing more than a million tons of gas, ice and the “potential building blocks of life” into Solar system.
The volatile comet, known as 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann (29P), is about 37 miles (60 kilometers) wide and takes about 14.9 years to orbit the sun. 29P is believed to be the most volcanically active comet in the Solar System. It is one of about 100 comets, known as “centaurs”, that have been ejected from the Kuiper Belt – the ring of icy comets that lurk behind Neptune — into a closer orbit around the sun between those of Jupiter and Neptune, according to NASA (opens in new tab).
On November 22, an amateur astronomer named Patrick Wiggins noticed that 29P had increased in brightness dramatically, according to Spaceweather.com (opens in new tab). Subsequent observations by other astronomers revealed that this luminosity spike was the result of a massive volcanic eruption — the second largest seen on 29P in 12 years, according to British Astronomical Association (opens in new tab) (BAA). The biggest eruption in that period was huge breakout in september 2021.
An eruption of this size is “fairly rare,” Cai Stoddard-Jones (opens in new tab), a doctoral candidate at Cardiff University in the UK who took the afterimage of the 29P eruption, told Live Scenes. “It is [also] it’s hard to say why this one is so big.”
The explosion was followed by two smaller outbreaks on November 27 and 29, according to BAA.
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Unlike volcanoes on Earth, which spew red-hot magma and ash from the mantle, 29P spews extremely cold gases and ice from its core. This unusual type of volcanic activity is known as cryovolcanism or “cold volcanism”.
Cryovolcanic bodies, which include several other comets and moons in the Solar System, such as Saturn’s Enceladus, Jupiter’s Europa, and Neptune’s Triton, have a surface crust surrounding a mostly solid icy core, Richard Miles (opens in new tab), a BAA astronomer who studied 29P, told Live Science. Over time, solar radiation can cause the icy interior of a comet to sublimate from solid to gas, causing pressure to build up beneath the crust. When solar radiation weakens the crust as well, that pressure causes the outer shell to crack and cryomagma to erupt into space.
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The cryomagma of comets like 29P consists mostly of carbon monoxide and nitrogen gas, as well as some icy solids and liquid hydrocarbons, which “may have provided some of the raw materials from which life on Earth arose,” NASA officials wrote.
The ejecta from 29P’s latest eruption stretched up to 34,800 miles (56,000 km) away from the comet and is traveling at speeds of up to 805 mph (1,295 km/h), according to the BAA. The plume “probably contained more than a million tons of ejecta,” Miles added.
Photos of the comet’s eruption also show that the plume formed an irregular Pac-Man-like shape, suggesting the eruption originated from a single point or region on the comet’s surface, according to Spaceweather.com.
These observations support previous research suggesting that 29P’s eruptions are related to its rotation. Miles and Stoddard-Jones believe that the comet’s slower rotation causes solar radiation to be absorbed more unevenly on the comet, causing eruptions. The comet’s past eruptions tend to coincide with a 57-day rotation period, the researchers said.
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Researchers also suspect that 29P’s most explosive eruptions follow a cycle based on its orbit around the Sun. A series of large eruptions were detected from 2008 to 2010, and now there have been two large explosions in the past two years, Miles said. It is therefore likely that there will be at least one more major eruption from 29P by the end of 2023, he added.
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However, it is less clear how this longer eruption cycle occurs, because unlike most other comets, which approach the Sun during a certain period of their orbit, 29P has a mostly circular orbit, meaning it never gets much closer to the Sun. from his average distance, Stoddard-Jones said.
29P has been largely ignored by the astronomical community since its discovery in 1927, but as new evidence of its unusual volcanic activity emerges, it is beginning to be taken more seriously, Miles said. “Clearly, something new can be discovered in the study of 29P.”
The The James Webb Space Telescope it is scheduled to take a closer look at 29P early next year, he added.
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