Interstellar comet 21/Borisov is ready for its closeup.
Four Yale astronomers captured a new, detailed image of the mysterious celestial body, first spotted this summer.
Pieter van Dokkum, Cheng-Han Hsieh, Shany Danieli, and Gregory Laughlin snapped the image on Nov. 24 using the W.M. Keck Observatory’s Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer in Hawaii.
They also created an illustration showing how the comet would look alongside Earth.
21/Borisov is only the second known astral object to have passed through our solar system. The first, ‘Oumuamua, was identified two years ago.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope last month photographed the comet at a distance of 260 million miles from Earth.
It is following a hyperbolic path around the sun, falling at an extraordinary speed of 110,000 mph, and is expected to make its closest approach—about 190 million miles—on Dec. 7.
Researchers believe the comet formed in a solar system beyond ours, and was ejected into space as the result of a near-collision with a far-off planet.
According to Yale astronomy professor van Dokkum, 21/Borisov’s tail, highlighted in the new image, is nearly 100,000 miles long—14 times the size of our home planet.
“It’s humbling to realize how small Earth is next to this visitor from another solar system,” van Dokkum said.
The solid nucleus of the comet is only about a mile wide. As it began reacting to the sun’s warming effect, 21/Borisov has taken on a “ghostly” appearance, the scientists said.
“Astronomers are taking advantage of Borisov’s visit,” according to Laughlin, “using telescopes such as Keck to obtain information about the building blocks of planets in systems other than our own.”
By mid-2020, Borisov will streak past Jupiter on its outbound journey, eventually leaving the solar system forever.
More on Geek.com:
- Astronomers Detect Cyanide in Mysterious Interstellar Comet
- Scientists Find Tiny Fragment of Comet Inside a Meteorite
- NASA Telescope Captures Stunning Sight of 2018’s Brightest Comet
from Geek.com https://ift.tt/2L2TG9l
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment