Travelling at around 110,000mph, the interloper will pass roughly 190million miles from Earth in December, according to Nasa.
That's about twice the average distance from Earth to the Sun.
Borisov's breakneck speed indicates it came from interstellar space, and will likely return there again sometime next year.
Unlike Oumuamua, which was only spotted as it sped past Earth, scientists saw Borisov coming weeks before its visit.
Mysterious interstellar object pictured coming towards us from deep space – and will make '''close approach''' next month
The astronomers analyzed spectra of 2I/Borisov obtained by the ARCES instrument, a high spectral resolution spectrograph mounted on the 3.5-m Astrophysical Research Consortium Telescope at Apache Point Observatory.
They detected the presence of water via the [O I] 6300 Å line emission.
“We determined an H2O production rate of 6.3*1026 mol/s,” the researchers explained, “which when compared to cyanide (CN) gas measurements suggest Borisov is either enhanced or typical in CN compared to the average value for Solar System comets, though the enhanced numbers are still within the range of observed values.”
“Diatomic carbon (C2), while likely depleted compared to CN, is either typical or depleted when compared to H2O.”
Water and other "earthly" substances have already been identified in the tail. Too bad we can't send a ship up to it.
Water Detected in Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov | Astronomy | Sci-News.com
Water and other "earthly" substances have already been identified in the tail. Too bad we can't send a ship up to it.
Water Detected in Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov | Astronomy | Sci-News.com
Thats because comets are made of ice and dust particles. Nothing new about this.
It's new since it comes from a galaxy far far away, lending much credence to the notion that they are all relatively the same and confirming we are not in any way "special."
I don't see any evidence of out of galaxy origin. Have I missed something?
Yes, like everything.
Water and other "earthly" substances have already been identified in the tail. Too bad we can't send a ship up to it.
Water Detected in Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov | Astronomy | Sci-News.com
I don't see any evidence of out of galaxy origin. Have I missed something?
So it is not from outside the galaxy then. You may have got that bit wrong.
This seems like another normal celestial event to me. The only difference is we have better equipment accuracy for tracking the path it came from.
So it is not from outside the galaxy then. You may have got that bit wrong.
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