I have yet another dumb question: After all these billions of years, why is this “massive” comet just now making its first run at the sun?
No one knows and they like to make things up using big words so they don’t sound as clueless as they are.
The universe is a big place.
This probably happens all the time, we just happened to be around to see this one.
Space aliens, of course.
I think we should ask a Hollywood celebrity.
from your excerpt, the answer:
The comet's original home was most likely the Oort Cloud, the repository of comets and planetary fragments that extends from 2,000 to 200,000 AU from the sun. There, surrounded by billions of other frozen snowballs and space rocks, K2 spent billions of years slumbering until it received an unexpected gravitational kick, probably from a star passing by the outer edges of the solar system.
The best known comet in the world, Halley's Comet, has been visiting about every 76 years (has varied between about 74 and about 79 years) since at least 240 BC (per Chinese records), and it's been speculated to have been seen in ancient Greece in the 5th c BC (but that's not generally accepted, including by this guy). Even just from the lower figure, that's 29 visits (most recent was in 1986, was a dud for me due to winter skies and low on the horizon), during which it has shed a lot of its former mass, but has enough left to still put on a show. That suggests that it took its first trip through perhaps in 240 BC.
Maybe it was activated by Oumuamua when it passed by Earth in 2017.
There are long period comets that make their return after thousands of years. Likely this one has been here before but we were still figuring out how to make fire or walk upright.
Just one of the billions of Oort Cloud objects suspected to exist. They come when something perturbs their orbits, not before.
Probably heard about this crazy place called earth....hey, honey....pack the comet and let’s go see the crazy earthlings.