Estimated to be 100–200 kilometers across, the unusual celestial wanderer will make its closest approach to the Sun in 2031.
They found data of this object that was originally collected from 2014–2018, which did not show a typical comet tail, and the object was therefore thought to be a dwarf planet.
But within a day of the announcement of its discovery via the Minor Planet Center, astronomers using the Las Cumbres Observatory network took new images which revealed that it has grown a coma in the past 3 years, and that it was rapidly moving rapidly through the Oort Cloud.
They also said the coma appears to be displaying normal “simple” sublimation thermodynamics of most comet , but they can’t predict how much brighter or more active the comet might get as it gets closer to the Sun.
The astronomers deduced that the current inward journey of the comet began at a distance of over 40,000 astronomical units .
Currently, the comet is about as far away as Uranus and has a magnitude of just under 20.