‘Twin’ Comets Pass By Earth With Closest Approach In Years

Two comets now being called "twins" are one of the closest comets to come near Earth on Monday and Tuesday morning.

The "twin" comets have that title due to their similar trajectory. One, Comet 252P/LINEAR, is familiar to the astronomers, yet the other, P/2016 BA14, was just recently discovered by scientists. Both flew close to the Earth than any other comet seen in years.

Comet 252P/LINEAR was first seen on April 7, 2000 by astronomers according to The Weather Network. Yet, the Comet P/2016 BA14 was spotted just 2 months ago on January 22.

When P/2016 BA14 was first viewed, scientists thought it was an asteroid, but when they saw that the mass had a following tail, they quickly re-labled it as a comet.

However, it boggled many as to why it had a similar trajectory to 252P/LINEAR. The theory is that lesser-known comet, P/2016 BA14, had come from the familiar 252P/LINEAR.

"Comet P/2016 BA14 is possibly a fragment of 252P/LINEAR," Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center of NEO Studies (CNEOS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a NASA statement. "We know comets are relatively fragile things, as in 1993 when comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was discovered and its pieces linked to a flyby of Jupiter. Perhaps during a previous pass through the inner-solar system, or during a distant flyby of Jupiter, a chunk that we now know of as BA14 might have broken off of 252P."

On Monday the first comet came close to earth. The 230 metre-wide 252P/LINEAR came just 5.2 million kilometers (13.9 times the distance from the Moon), while the smaller 120 metre-wide P/2016 BA14 flew at a closer distance on Tuesday morning with just 3.5 million kilometers (9.2 the distance from the Moon).