Our best look at the probable interstellar comet Borisov up to now

Astronomers have spotted what we believe to be the second known interstellar object never discovered. And now, a telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii has so far taken the brightest color image of the wandering comet.

Comet Borisov, or C / 2019 Q4, as we call it more formally, probably came from somewhere beyond our solar system and is currently about to make its closest run to the sun in December before returning to the deep space.

The comet was first spotted by Ukrainian amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov on August 30 in Crimea. In the weeks that followed, observatories around the world rallied to try to make follow-up observations. One of them was the Gemini Observatory on Mauna Kea, who managed to capture the image above Monday night.

C / 2019 Q4 is the white object in the center with fuzzy tail, or coma, resulting from a degassing defining a comet.

According to NASA, the comet is currently 420 million kilometers from the sun and will approach about 300 million kilometers on December 8. This will keep it beyond the orbit of Mars. goes through the top to bottom of the plane of our solar system.

"The current speed of the comet is high, about 150,000 km / h (150,000 km / h), which is well above the typical speeds of objects orbiting the sun at this distance," he said. said Davide Farnocchia of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Objects. "The high speed not only indicates that the object is probably coming from outside our solar system, but also that it will leave and return to interstellar space."

Chances are good that we would see this comet very alien with a lot more detail as it gets closer over the next few months.

"The object will reach maximum brightness in mid-December and continue to be observed with medium-sized telescopes until April 2020," Farnocchia said. "After that, larger professional telescopes will only be seen in October 2020."