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Astronomers have discovered that the interstellar comet – 21 / Borisov may be the most pristine galactic object when viewed from outside the solar system, data from the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed. The comet, which is believed to have arrived from a red dwarf star, became the first confirmed interstellar object to pass through Earth’s solar system last year. Observed by Hubble’s Cosmic Origins (COS) spectrograph, the first confirmed comet to enter our solar system was found to be strongly composed of carbon monoxide and had different characteristics compared to comets in Earth’s solar system, the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter from NASA’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Table (ALMA) found.
Known as Oumaumua in the Hawaiian language, which translates to “ Scout, ” the second interstellar object detected in the Earth’s planetary system is roughly the diameter of a small town, but when heated by the Sun, the tail of this interstellar comet can stretch for millions of kilometers. , NASA explained. It is a most immaculate object to visit the solar system after its origin somewhere in deep space. It was first discovered in 2019 by Ukrainian astrophysicist Gennady Borisov at the MARGO Observatory in Crimea, and its composition and uniqueness has been studied by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The comet contained 50% more carbon monoxide than water vapor, which made it more fuzzy, NASA explained.
Light polarizations observed
“There are two new ways that 2I / Borisov doesn’t look like any known comet,” scientists said in studies published in the journal Nature Communications and the journal Nature Astronomy on March 30. According to the analysis carried out by the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory, Borisov’s coma was formed by an envelope of gas which diffused the lights like grains of dust. These light wave emissions propagated in space from the gas core, causing polarization. In fact, the researchers found that 2I / Borisov’s coma was very polarized. In addition, scientists found that the dust in 2I / Borisov’s coma was made up of compact pebbles, about 2 millimeters in width. According to the NASA publication, 2I / Borisov is about the length of nine football fields, making it relatively smaller than other comets in the solar system.
[Image Credit: Twitter/@DrFunkySpoon]
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