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Comet 2I/Borisov: Extrasolar Visitor (Like 'Oumuamua)

EnolaGaia

EnolaGaia

I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ...
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It's not a certainty yet, but 'we' may have detected the second object entering our solar system from another / extrasolar point of origin (i.e., another 'Oumuamua type visitor).
Another Mysterious Object From Interstellar Space May Have Entered Our Solar System

Astronomers may have spotted the second object ever to visit our Solar System from another star system. The object may even fly near Mars later this year, though it's still far away.

The scientists' hunch is strong but not yet certain: Right now, the chances are much higher that the object, known as comet "C/2019 Q4 (Borisov)" (formerly "gb00234"), is interstellar, rather than a rock from within the Solar System.

The first such interstellar object ever detected – the mysterious and controversial cigar-shaped space rock 'Oumuamua – zoomed through our Solar System in 2017.

Amateur Ukrainian astronomer Gennady Borisov may have been the first to spot C/2019 Q4 in the sky on August 30.

Astronomers have been collecting data in hopes of plotting the object's path through space and figuring out where it came from.

"It's so exciting, we're basically looking away from all of our other projects right now," Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer with the European Southern Observatory, told Business Insider on Wednesday.

Hainaut was part of a global team of astronomers that studied 'Oumuamua as it passed through the Solar System two years ago.

"The main difference from 'Oumuamua and this one is that we got it a long, long time in advance, " he added. "Now astronomers are much more prepared."

Early images suggest C/2019 Q4 is followed by a small tail or halo of dust. That's a distinct trait of comets – they hold ice that gets heated up by nearby stars, which leads them to shoot out gas and grit into space.

The dust could make C/2019 Q4 simpler to track than 'Oumuamua, since dust brightly reflects sunlight.

This could also allow scientists to more easily study the object's composition, since telescope instruments can "taste" light to look for chemical signatures. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-poss...-is-currently-flying-through-the-solar-system
 
Here's the recently established Wikipedia entry for C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) (the possibly extrasolar object mentioned above). Its orbital eccentricity seems to be the main issue in considering it may be extrasolar in origin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2019_Q4_(Borisov)
 
If it's the same size and shape as Oumuamua, then maybe we should be worried.
 
Mythopoeika said:
If it's the same size and shape as Oumuamua, then maybe we should be worried.
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It's probably not shaped like 'Oumuamua, because it's outgassing like a comet (unlike 'Oumuamua).
 
Here's an update from early inspections of the object ...
Here's What We Know So Far About The Possibly Interstellar Object in Our Solar System

In the Solar System, there are over 6,300 known comets. There are millions of asteroids. And of all those objects, only 'Oumuamua - a red, cigar-shaped asteroid - is known to have come from elsewhere. Until now.

A new discovery, revealed just last week, has astronomers excited. A comet named C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), discovered on August 30 by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov, has a trajectory and velocity that suggests the object originated outside the Solar System.

Eager telescopic eyes have been turning to the comet's location to try and extract as much information as humanly possible. Late last week, we got our first full-colour photo, showing the distinctive outgassing associated with an icy cometary body drawing closer to the Sun.

And now the first pre-print papers are coming in. Two separate teams have analysed the comet so far: one looking at the object's colour, and another one at its spectrum, to see if they could learn more about the composition of the strange body. Their work is yet to be peer-reviewed, but we can start looking at their findings along with the scientific community. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s...possibly-interstellar-comet-c-2019-q4-borisov
 
Update ...
2nd interstellar visitor to our solar system confirmed and named

An unusual object detected streaking across the sky last month was a comet that originated outside our solar system, observations have confirmed, becoming only the second observed interstellar object to cross into our solar system.

It has been named 2I/Borisov by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. And it's anywhere between 1.2 and 10 miles in diameter, Karen Meech and her colleagues at the University of Hawaii say.

Observations by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Solar System Dynamics Group have supported that this comet has the most hyperbolic orbit out of the thousands of known comets.

"The orbit is now sufficiently well known, and the object is unambiguously interstellar in origin," according to a release by the IAU, which has designated the object as the second interstellar object, 2I.

It first was spotted on August 30, almost two years after the first interstellar visitor detected in our solar system, known as 'Oumuamua, was found in October 2017. Interstellar means that the object originated outside our solar system. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/24/world/second-interstellar-visitor-confirmed-scn-trnd/index.html
 
I am super excited to see it was discovered by an amateur astronomer.
 
Over the last few days outgassing has been confirmed from Comet 2I/Borisov. The first chemical compound identified within this outgassing is cyanogen.
First alien gases detected from interstellar comet

Just weeks after the discovery of the second-ever comet from outside of our solar system (the first was the cigar-shaped ‘Oumuamua), astronomers have detected gas emitted from its surface—the first hint of what an interstellar traveler is made of.

Sadly, it’s not kryptonite, or even unobtanium, but cyanogen, a simple but toxic molecule made up of two carbon and two nitrogen atoms. ...

Cyanogen is often found surrounding comets originating within our own solar system, so wherever 2I/Borisov comes from is probably not too different. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/first-alien-gasses-detected-interstellar-comet
 
EnolaGaia said:
Here are the URL's for more info on the two papers already submitted for publication:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.05851
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This paper has now been peer-reviewed and published. The article cited below provides a summary of its findings.
The First Peer-Reviewed Paper on Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov Has Just Been Published

We've been hearing a lot about interstellar comet 2I/Borisov after its amazing discovery on 30 August 2019. Now the first analysis has hit peer-reviewed publication, landing a description of the comet in the prestigious pages of Nature Astronomy.

If you've been following along, you will be familiar with the findings, posted to preprint server arXiv in September. Long story short? 2I/Borisov is uncannily similar to comets that zoom into the Sun from the outer edges of the Solar System.

But the 'how' part of the study is also really nifty.

The first detection of the comet officially came from Crimean amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, who spotted the space rock with a telescope of his own construction. That part of the story is well known.

What is not as well known is that a team of astronomers led by researchers at Jagiellonian University in Poland spotted the comet independently.

After the surprise detection of interstellar asteroid 'Oumuamua in October 2017 - the first interstellar object known to penetrate the Solar System - astronomers wanted to be ready. So the team created software called Interstellar Crusher to monitor the Possible Comet Confirmation Page, looking for potential interstellar orbits.

On 8 September - just a week after Borisov's detection - Interstellar Crusher got a hit. And, as we all know now, it turned out to be the real deal. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-the-first-paper-about-2i-borisov-in-a-peer-reviewed-journal

The abstract can be viewed at:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0931-8
 
The results from December 2019 observations and chemical analyses of 21/Borisov's outgassing have now been published. The main surprise is the proportion of CO (carbon monoxide) the comet seems to contain.
Unusually high CO abundance of the first active interstellar comet

M. A. Cordiner, S. N. Milam, N. Biver, D. Bockelée-Morvan, N. X. Roth, E. A. Bergin, E. Jehin, A. J. Remijan, S. B. Charnley, M. J. Mumma, J. Boissier, J. Crovisier, L. Paganini, Y.-J. Kuan & D. C. Lis

Nature Astronomy (2020)

Abstract
Comets spend most of their lives at large distances from any star, during which time their interior compositions remain relatively unaltered. Cometary observations can therefore provide direct insight into the chemistry that occurred during their birth at the time of planet formation1. To date, there have been no confirmed observations of parent volatiles (gases released directly from the nucleus) of a comet from any planetary system other than our own. Here, we present high-resolution interferometric observations of 2I/Borisov, the first confirmed interstellar comet, obtained using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) on 15–16 December 2019. Our observations reveal emission from hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and carbon monoxide (CO) coincident with the expected position of 2I/Borisov’s nucleus, with production rates Q(HCN) = (7.0 ± 1.1) × 1023 s−1 and Q(CO) = (4.4 ± 0.7) × 1026 s−1. While the HCN abundance relative to water (0.06–0.16%) appears similar to that of typical, previously observed comets in our Solar System, the abundance of CO (35–105%) is among the highest observed in any comet within 2 au of the Sun. This shows that 2I/Borisov must have formed in a relatively CO-rich environment—probably beyond the CO ice-line in the very cold, outer regions of a distant protoplanetary accretion disk, as part of a population of small icy bodies analogous to our Solar System’s own proto-Kuiper belt.
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SOURCE: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1087-2

See Also:

Unusual Secrets Revealed in Analysis of Mysterious Visitor From the Depths of Space
https://scitechdaily.com/unusual-se...-mysterious-visitor-from-the-depths-of-space/
 
Comet 2I/Borisov was considered susceptible to breaking up during its visit to our solar system. Indeed, two big chunks separated from its nucleus. However, new analyses indicate it will survive to leave our star system in one piece. Not as big a piece as it was upon arrival, but a single piece nonetheless.
The First Known Interstellar Comet Might Survive Our Solar System After All

Earlier this year, a comet that wandered into the Solar System from a distant star appeared to have met its demise when it started to break apart. But appearances can be deceiving, and a new analysis of 2I/Borisov's fragmentation has found that the main body of the comet will survive its encounter with the Solar System. ...

Given that 2I/Borisov exhibited several characteristics in common with comets from the outer Solar System, its fragmentation was anticipated as a strong possibility.

According to the new paper, however, the March outburst was relatively minor after all. Here's how it went down. From March 4 to 9, the comet brightened considerably - a cometary outburst.

About three weeks after the outburst, on March 30, a secondary chunk of comet was spotted. But by April 3, the second chunk had disappeared; nor was it visible in March 28 observations.

According to the calculations made by Jewitt and his team, the early March outburst was a cloud of about 100 square kilometres (38.6 square miles) across, consisting of particles about 0.1 millimetres in size. This cloud had an estimated mass of about 20 million kilograms (44 million pounds).

That's only a negligible fraction of the nucleus, which the team estimated at 300 billion kilograms (660 billion pounds), based on a radius of 500 metres (546 yards) calculated from high-resolution measurements of the object's surface.

The secondary object that appeared later was around 600 square metres (717 square yards) in size, corresponding to a mass of about 120,000 kilograms (265,000 pounds). The team believes this chunk broke off the main nucleus during the early March outburst, but didn't appear for several weeks.

This allowed the team to calculate how it appeared, and why it disappeared.

"The delayed appearance and rapid demise of the secondary together suggest an origin by spin-up and rotational bursting of one or more large (meter-scale) boulders under the action of outgassing torques," they wrote in their paper.

Astronomers have been keeping a close eye on the comet; so far, no further outbursts have been reported, indicating that the interstellar visitor remains intact, and survived the stresses of perihelion that many comets do not.

"Overall," the researchers wrote, "our observations reveal that the outburst and splitting of the nucleus are minor events involving a negligible fraction of the total mass: 2I/Borisov will survive its passage through the planetary region largely unscathed." ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/inters...-may-survive-its-solar-system-visit-after-all
 
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