And it's no threat to Earth. This behemoth spans 80 miles across and weighs approximately 500 trillion tons, making it the most enormous known comet in existence. }); } Astronomers believe it last visited the inner solar system about 3 million years ago. The reason? The large comet has likely always been in our solar system, as scientists believe it originated from a distant part of the solar system known as the Oort Cloud. [3] Infrared NEOWISE observations from November 2020 did not detect any CO gas emission from C/2014 UN271 at 20.9AU, placing an upper limit CO outgassing rate at about ten times that of Comet HaleBopp at the same heliocentric distance. Whatever wasnt either boiled off by the Sun or locked up into the planetary, lunar, asteroidal, or Kuiper belt objects we have today remained in a spheroidal cloud, anywhere from a thousand times the Earth-Sun distance to one or two light-years away. If the wrong series of gravitational encounters occurs, a direct hit would be the most catastrophic event to occur since impact that led to the formation of our Moon. Measuring 137 kilometres in width, the comet has outsized the Hale-Bopp comet, which was discovered in 1995 and measured 74 kilometres. An illustration of the massive comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, (Image credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. That. April 15, 2022 04:12 pm | Updated April 16, 2022 07:30 pm IST The animation depicts a mapping of the positions of known near-Earth objects (NEOs) at points in time over the past 20 years and finishes with a map of all known asteroids as of January 2018. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), 8 ways we know that black holes really do exist, The 15 weirdest galaxies in our universe. Monster rock hurtling towards solar system, What is the Quadrantid meteor shower? Its classification changed this year when the iconic "tail," or coma the stream of dust and gas released when a comet approaches the sun and heats up was independently confirmed by the Las Cumbres Observatory network. [50], According to a 2021 study by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies, a future flyby mission with a direct, low-energy trajectory to C/2014 UN271 can have yearly optimal launch windows between September and October throughout 20222029, for a maximum delta-v of 20km/s at Earth. [3][20] The observation of cometary activity from such large heliocentric distances is rare: only three other comets, Comet HaleBopp (27.2 AU outbound),[22] C/2010 U3 (Boattini) (25.8 AU inbound), and C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) (24.0 AU inbound), have been observed to exhibit activity at heliocentric distances greater than 20AU. The comet came from the Oort Cloud of objects, an isolated group of icy objects that are more distant than anything else in our solar system. Bernardinelli and Bernstein submitted their evidence for the comet to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which acts as the world's official repository for the orbits of. [9], Even at its minimum estimated diameter, C/2014 UN271 is the largest Oort cloud comet discovered, being more than 50 times larger than a typical comet which is less than 2km (1.2mi) in diameter. Estimated to be 80 miles across and with a mass of 500 trillion. Dubbed C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS), this collossal comet . While Comet BernardinelliBernstein, the most massive comet ever discovered, isnt going to hit Earth on this current pass through the Solar System, the far future is anyones guess. This is comparable in size to the recently discovered Bernardinelli-Bernstein "mega comet," thought to be the largest in recorded history. The camera, also known as DECam, is helping to map 300 million galaxies across the night sky but it also captures glimpses of comets and trans-Neptuinan objects, or icy celestial bodies that reside along the outskirts of the solar system, beyond Neptunes orbit. The comet was spotted with the Hubble Space Telescope. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is estimated to be about 1000 times more . [16], The inbound and outbound orbital period of an Oort cloud comet are never exactly the same as the orbit changes as a result of planetary perturbations. Images of the object taken between 2014 and 2018 did not show a cometary tail. On June 19, the center confirmed that the object was a new discovery. For reference, Pluto is 39 astronomical units from the sun. "A 62-mile wide 'Mega-Comet' has just entered our solar system," reads a graphic shared in a July 22 Instagram post. From life on Earth to the planet itself, there are four ways our planet will actually experience the end, no matter how we define it. We describe the properties that can be inferred from images recorded . First off, no, it would not destroy the entire planet. Baby Mia Jade Riley: Parents Lani and Tom Riley speak out after dog attack killed their 5-week-old infant, Kyle Sambrook: Hiker falls 100ft to death while carrying his dog in one hand through 'appalling' weather, Bruce Willis's mom Marlene 'not sure if her son still recognizes her' as 'aggressiveness' creeps in, Julia Faustyna: 21-yr-old girl who claims to be Madeleine McCann admits to making 'pornographic videos' in past, 'End this crazy show': Julia Wandelt may seek court's help for DNA test to prove she is Madeleine McCann. To bring an object to the same distance from the Sun that Earth is at, from an origin in the far reaches of the Oort cloud, means it will move at around 42 km/s. The Earth, overall, would remain intact. Expect some brilliant lights in the night sky this summer:The Delta Aquariid meteor shower, which started this month, will be visible until Aug. 23 producingbright fireballs typically visible after midnight and before dawn. document.querySelector("#adunit").addEventListener('click',function(){ This is not the first time this particular comet will pass our solar system. There are, of course, other concerns, like the location of impact as well as the angle of impact, but those are only relevant when you have smaller impacts: the kinds that are unlikely to cause mass extinctions. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein comes from the Oort Cloud, a spherical cloud of icy objects from 50,000 to 100,000 AU from the Sun that surround the Solar System. Bernardinelli et al. At this point, it had entered our inner solar system, the region familiar to us that includes all the known planets. At a much farther distance of 18 AU, the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet had whizzed past our solar system 3.5 billion years ago, following which it has travelled 40,000AU in the Oort cloud. The largest comet ever discovered in the history of our Solar System is Bernardinelli-Bernstein (labeled C/2014 UN271), which originated from the Oort cloud. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein's orbit will return it to the Oort Cloud . At its furthest, it's 2 trillion kilometres away. Earth could wind up as a nearly airless world, or it could lose almost all of its surface water. The comet is located 29 astronomical units (AU) away - 29 times the distance between the Earth . The. The Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet is an extraordinarily large specimen. The gargantuan Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet will strafe Saturn's orbit in 2031. Unfortunately,", "News Feature: Mission to 2014 UN271 using OITS", Giant Comet Found in Outer Solar System by Dark Energy Survey, C/1680 V1 (Great Comet of 1680, Kirsch's Comet, Newton's Comet), C/1743 X1 (Great Comet of 1744, Comet Klinkenberg-Chseaux), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=C/2014_UN271_(BernardinelliBernstein)&oldid=1140104383, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox templates with ignored data cells, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2022, All articles containing potentially dated statements, JPL Small-Body Database ID different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 13:00. The distance between Earth and the sun is one astronomical unit. At an estimated 93 miles wide, the Bernardinelli-Bernstein Comet is believed to be the largest comet ever discovered. Scientists believe it holds clues to the mysterious region of space far beyond Pluto, some. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, named after the astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein who discovered it, is approaching the sun from the edge of the solar system at 22,000 mph. the rushing of sub-crustal magma up to the surface and even a possible re-surfacing event. But every once in a while, a chance gravitational encounter will perturb the orbit of a particular object, and send one careening into the inner Solar System. But by the time they do, their power sources will have been dead for centuries. After reaching its perihelion point, the comet will head back to the Oort cloud, in a journey that could take hundreds of thousands and possibly even millions of years. NY 10036. Comets are chunks of rock and ice that orbit the sun. pg.acq.push(function() { If we came back a million years after such an impact, we might find that the entire geography of our planet was unrecognizable, having been resurfaced after such a mighty impact. If comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein did strike the Earth, its very reasonable that would either be the end of Earth as a living planet or it would wipe out all life that was more complex and differentiated than a single-celled organism. This event would be thousands to perhaps even ten thousand times as energetic as the asteroid strike that occurred 65 million years ago, and that impact left a crater some 200 kilometers across. Satellites that coalesce to multiple kilometers in size are not out of the question; we could wind up with something akin to Phobos or Deimos, just like Mars presently possesses. Subscribers will get the newsletter every Saturday. Based on the amount of sunlight it reflects, the comet is . The Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet was one of the objects discovered. [18] The detection of cometary activity was confirmed by the Minor Planet Center and the comet was formally named C/2014 UN271(BernardinelliBernstein) on 24 June 2021. [32][38][39] However, C/2014 UN271 lies far below the 4001,000km (250620mi) diameter threshold for hydrostatic equilibrium; it cannot be a dwarf planet as it is most likely not massive enough to have become spherical through its own gravity. Planetary Science Institute, accessed July 29. }); He enjoys writing most about space, geoscience and the mysteries of the universe. Live Science is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is estimated to be about 1000 times more massive than a typical comet, making it arguably the largest comet discovered in modern times. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein was found in six years of data collected by the Dark Energy Camera, which is located on the Vctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. By 2014, it was 2.7 billion miles away from the sun. The huge "mega" comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) 80 miles wide is coming towards Earth from the edge of our Solar System. The comet's gargantuan size is an estimate based on how much sunlight it reflects. [27], Rigorous computations of C/2014 UN271's orbit and ephemeris have identified few potential occultation events by the comet from 20212025, during which the comet would pass in front of a bright star and briefly block out the star's light. The comet was first discovered by the Dark Energy Survey project. This is something we observed for 1994s impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy with the planet Jupiter, where a total of around two dozen large fragments were identified. hitType: 'event', Any impact thats massive and energetic enough, in principle as well as in practice, could cause a mass extinction event if we dont do something to mitigate it. A mega-comet spotted in 2021 is now the largest ever seen according to observations by scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope. Comets include a nucleus, or the solid dirty snowball at its center. The challenge of measuring the size of the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet was to separate its nucleus from the coma. }); But coming from the far reaches of the Oort Cloud, an object of comparable mass would have a much greater impact speed, and hence would impart a much greater amount of energy to Earth. It is approaching the Sun and will reach its perihelion of 10.9AU (just outside of Saturn's orbit) in January 2031. A giant comet from the outskirts of our solar system has been discovered in six years of data from the Dark Energy Survey. This image shows an artist's impression of what the surface of the 2I/Borisov comet might look like. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein follows a 3-million-year-long elliptical orbit, taking it as far from the Sun as roughly half a light-year. An illustration of what a synestia might look like: a puffed-up ring that surrounds a planet subsequent to a high-energy, large angular momentum impact. Although most comets are relatively small in diameter, larger ones, like comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, illustrated here, do exist. Here's how you can view the celestial light show. Eventually, NASA spacecraft like Voyager 1 and 2, as well as New Horizons will reach the Oort Cloud. } ga('ads.send', { Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein provides an invaluable clue to the size distribution of comets in the Oort Cloud and hence its total mass. Given that Earth orbits the Sun at about 30 kilometers-per-second, and that both asteroids and Earth typically orbit the Sun in the same general direction, the, Putting those factors together, the total energy of that impact was somewhere in the ballpark of 10. a complete disruption of Earths crust, oceans, and atmosphere. 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotRenderEnded', function(event) { [51][52] Alternatively, a flyby trajectory to C/2014 UN271 using a combined gravity assist and Oberth maneuver at Jupiter can have feasible launch dates from 20202027 and 20342037. [6][45] It will make its closest approach to Earth around 5 April 2031 at a distance of 10.1AU (1.5billionkm; 0.94billionmi). How to save Earth from a doomsday impact as seen in Dont Look Up, We understand planets better than ever, and thats why Pluto still isnt one, What plants can teach us about human suffering. Measuring somewhere between 62 and 230 miles in diameter, Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is one of the biggest comets that has ever been found and is even 10 times larger than the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, scientists say. [4] This indicates that C/2014 UN271 was at its furthest distance, or aphelion, of 40,000AU (0.6ly) in the Oort cloud around 1.4 million years ago. window.googletag.cmd.push(function() { Comets of the Oort Cloud are also believed to have been formed much close to our sun before getting thrown out to the far reaches of our solar system bound for eternity to feel the pull of their former home. [3] Less abundant supervolatile substances such as carbon monoxide (CO) are likely present in C/2014 UN271 and may additionally contribute to its distant activity, but their emissions remain yet to be detected. READ MOREWhat is the Quadrantid meteor shower? But contrary to what the posts claim, it didn'tjust enter our solar system. [10] The ALMA measurements have not ruled out the possibility of a dust coma contaminating up to 24% of the nucleus's thermal emission, so the actual diameter may well be smaller. We are accustomed to thinking of these distant worlds as orbiting in the outer reaches of the solar system. The odds are slim, but the consequences would be devastating. The Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet was first detected seven years ago and is thought to be up to 100 miles wide - nearly 12 times the size of Mount Everest. [3][10] The albedo and color of C/2014 UN271's nucleus are expected to change over time due to cometary activity, especially after perihelion passage when temperatures decrease; its nucleus is massive enough to gravitationally recapture deposited icy ejecta back onto its surface, similar to what has been observed on Comet HaleBopp after its perihelion. The tremendousmass of ice, rockand space dust named Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its discoverers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein of the University of Pennsylvania is definitely real. Get counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday. [4] The object is only very loosely bound to the Sun and subject to perturbations by the galactic tide while in the Oort cloud. hitType: 'event', [28] Observing these occultation events would allow for opportunities to make precise measurements of the comet's size and position, as well as search for surrounding dust and possible satellites. Thanks for contacting us. [26] The comet's brightness has since faded back down to the 19th magnitude by December 2021. The comet was assumed to be a dwarf planet in the beginning, travelling through the Oort cloud. It is headed towards our Solar System and expected to arrive in 2031. It is supposed to only get to the middle of our Solar . The comet will reportedly pass just outside the orbit of Saturn a distance of 10.97 AU of the Sun. But dont worry: It wont lead to an extinction-level event. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. gads_event = event; [28], With a current declination of 47 below the celestial equator, C/2014 UN271 is best seen from the Southern hemisphere. Travelling at 22,000 miles per hour, it is moving from the edge of the solar system towards . ga('ads.send', { New York, Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein has an aphelion of just under 1 light-year, suggesting that the Oort cloud is at least that large. [3], Cometary activity in 2014 UN271 was first reported on 22 June 2021, by Tim Lister at Las Cumbres Observatory's telescope in Sutherland, South Africa and by Luca Buzzi at the SkyGems Remote Telescope in Namibia. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), As comets approach our sun during their orbits, their ices evaporate, creating their signature appearance. Researchers have plenty of time to study the massive comet as it soars ever closer to Earth over the next decade. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), Here's how you can view the celestial light show, Aurora Borealis aka Northern Lights: How, where and when to watch the splendor of awe-inspiring phenomenon in US. Now an expected discovery has been examined by the NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) team about the BB comet. [3] The long observation arc by the DES images revealed that the object was on a near-parabolic trajectory inbound towards the Solar System, implying a cometary origin from the Oort cloud, despite the object's apparently asteroidal (point-like) appearance in the images. But part of the beauty of science is that its quantitative, and that means we can calculate not perfectly, but to a reasonable approximation what such a large-magnitude event would cause on Earth. The one possible saving grace, however, is this: a comet this large, that approaches Earth from the Oort cloud, will experience substantial tidal forces from Earths gravity, and may be torn apart into a series of smaller fragments. 7:03 AM EDT, Tue July 27, 2021. [1][14] The earliest precovery observations of 2014 UN271 were obtained from Paranal Observatory's VISTA survey images taken on 15 November 2010, when the object was 34.1AU (5.1billionkm; 3.2billionmi) from the Sun. document.querySelector("#ads").addEventListener('click',function(){ [16][2] The object's relatively high brightness from its distance indicated that its diameter must be on the order of 100km (62mi)an exceptionally large size for an object of cometary origin. do not rule out other factors such as small dust outbursts that may contribute to this apparent variability, leaving room for the possibility that the nucleus's true rotational variability may be even less than 0.2 magnitudes. Can comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein hit Earth? In 1729, Comet Sarabat came much closer to Earth as it moved through the orbital path of Jupiter, and was estimated to be about 60 miles across (100 kilometers). A space rock the size of Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein hitting land would be orders of magnitude worse with impacts on a global scale and shifts in the climate. Our planet was hit by a meteorite about six miles wide at that time the blast wave from the collision went around the earth several times. Scientists briefly estimated that Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, as it's now known, was the largest such icy body identified to date, perhaps more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) across. [10], Media outlets have dubbed C/2014 UN271 a "mega-comet",[30][37] with some even purporting it to be a possible dwarf planet. The Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is currently about 3 billion kilometers away, roughly the distance from Uranus to the Sun, and at its closest point to Earth in 2031, it will be slightly more than the distance from Saturn to the Sun. Is there any chance that it could change course and collide with Earth ? The previous largest known long-period comet was C/2002 VQ94 (LINEAR) with a diameter of 96km (60mi),[35] followed by Comet HaleBopp at 74km (46mi). And the object, known as C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), is headed in this direction, quickly. are pretty much all in the same plane as the planets to begin with. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein was named on June 24 after Pedro Bernardinelli Gary Bernstein - the two astronomers who discovered it. If such an object were to strike Earth, the energy imparted to our planet would be thousands to ten thousand times as energetic as the K-Pg impactor that occurred 65 million years ago. It is now thought that our Moon was formed by an early collision with Earth that created such a phenomenon, something that science is still revealing the details of today. eventAction: 'click_adunit' At that time, it could be seen with the naked eye as a nebulous star. . [13] It was detected at the 22nd apparent magnitude in 42 DES images spanning 10 October 2014 to 26 November 2018. Some postsportend a cataclysmic event with hashtags "#endtimes" and "#bibleprophecy.". But some on social media claim a much more alarming celestial body is also headed our way. [10][43], Optical observations of C/2014 UN271 during its inbound passage show that its nucleus appears more reflective at longer wavelengths, indicating a moderately red color similar to (albeit slightly less red than) most long-period comets. The true extent of the outer Oort Cloud may be under 1 light-year, or greater than 3 light-years; there is a tremendous uncertainty here. If such an object were to strike Earth, the energy imparted to. A MEGA-COMET that's 120 miles long is the largest ever discovered in our Solar System. The comet . A large enough impact, one that imparted enough energy to our world, would be capable of gravitationally unbinding it, but that would require about 20,000 times more energy than a collision between Earth and comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein. Today, these bodies, mostly a mix of ice-and-rock, remain in slow, quasi-stable orbits in the deepest recesses of our Solar System. [g], C/2014 UN271 was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein in an algorithm-assisted search for slowly-moving trans-Neptunian objects, in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. media-tech companies with hubs around the world. The comet, known as the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet (or C/2014 UN271, in astro-speak), is at least 62 miles (100 kilometers) across about 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet. The more mass and the greater the speed of an object, the more damage it can do to Earth in the case of an impact. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, the largest comet ever discovered, has a nucleus that's approximately 119 kilometers across. },false) Jupiter might absorb most of the asteroid and comet strikes in the Solar System, but it also results in a net increase in the number of Earth impact that occur by about 350%. At present, the comet is travelling through the Oort cloud at about 29 AU. An object that falls into the inner Solar System from the Oort cloud is going to gain speed primarily owing to the gravity of the Sun. Travel the Universe with astrophysicist Ethan Siegel. Right now, Bernardinelli-Bernstein (BB) is cruising through the Oort cloud at about 29 times the distance between Earth and the sun, or 29 astronomical units (AU). Formed at the outset of the Solar System, it largely consists of the remnants of the primitive material that led to the formation of our Sun and the planets. the possible ejection of large portions of all three. For starters, the enormous rock poses no threat to Earth. If such an object were to strike Earth, the energy imparted to our planet would be thousands to ten thousand times as energetic as the K-Pg impactor that occurred 65 million years ago. One myth that often comes up in discussions such as this is, Wouldnt some other object, like the Moon or Jupiter, possibly protect us from a potential impact? And although its always possible, the odds arent in our favor. [10], The rotation period of 2014 UN271's nucleus is disputed, as some studies found no significant rotational periodicity in its light curve. [l] Its incoming orbit in 1600, as calculated by JPL Horizons, has a semimajor axis of 20,000AU (0.3ly). . [2][15][30] Once at perihelion, the comet is not expected to get brighter than Pluto (mag 1316) and is more likely to reach the brightness of Pluto's moon Charon (mag 16.8) as the comet does not enter the inner Solar System where comets become notably more active. These giant comets are thought to have been scattered to the far reaches of the solar system by the migration of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune early in their history. This massive comet isn't likely to hit with Earth, but it's on its way to the inner solar system and will travel past the Sun in 2031. Pristine interstellar comet came from a system containing giant planets. The first image had the comet obscured by a satellite streak, and my heart sank. The comet, known as the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet (or C/2014 UN271, in astro-speak), is at least 62 miles (100 kilometers) across about 1,000 times more massive than a typical. }) After all, encountering a long-period comet is Comet Interceptor's main aim. Similarly, the Moons additional gravity makes impacts on the Earth-Moon system more likely, increasing the collision rate with Earth by an even greater amount than the Moon absorbs impacts, despite its plethora of craters. The typical density of an asteroid is somewhere between 2 and 3 grams per cubic centimeter, which means, for the 10-kilometer wide asteroid that struck our planet 65 million years ago, Asteroids, when they get perturbed so that they cross into the inner Solar System, typically cross Earths orbit with a speed of around 25 kilometers-per-second. The comet made its grand debut in November 2010, when it was still about 3 billion miles from the sun, or about the distance to Neptune. [4][a][m] It will come to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) around 23 January 2031 at a distance of 10.95AU (1.6billionkm; 1.0billionmi),[6] just outside the aphelion of Saturn's orbit (10.1AU). Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is currently about 1.8 billion miles (3 billion kilometers) away - about the distance of Uranus from the sun - and at its closest point in 2031, it will be just. Astronomers hope that studying Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein could reveal. [9] Given the minimum estimated diameter (119km) and absolute magnitude, the nucleus is calculated to have a very low visual geometric albedo up to 4.4%1.2%, meaning that it reflects only 4.4%1.2% of visible lightmaking its surface darker than coal. if(document.querySelector("#google_image_div")){ It brightened by 0.65 magnitudes compared to images taken earlier that day, and reached an apparent magnitude of 18.9. [42] For the maximum estimated diameter (137km), the minimum albedo of the nucleus would be 3.3%0.9%. In general, if you had an object strike the Earth that was on the order of a kilometer in diameter or more, it would pose the type of existential threat that would not only bring an end to human civilization, but to a tremendous fraction of the species currently extant on Earth today. As the comet continues to get closer to Earth over the next 9 years, our size estimates for this terror-inducing behemoth should only become more precise. It has an extremely elongated . 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