Comet Visitor From Outside Our Solar System Will Wow Scientists For Months (theverge.com) 34
Astronomers have almost certainly detected a second interstellar comet zooming through our Solar System, but there's still quite a lot of work to be done to find out more about this alien space rock. In the weeks and months to come, astronomers will continue to observe this visitor with as many ground and space-based telescopes as possible to determine if it is, indeed, interstellar and figure out where it came from. From a report: An amateur astronomer, Gennady Borisov, first spotted this object on August 30th with his own telescope in Crimea. At the time, it wasn't immediately clear that the object -- named C/2019 Q4 -- wasn't from around here. As time has passed and more people looked at this thing, they've realized that the path that C/2019 Q4 is on does not loop around the Sun. Additionally, it's going super fast: about 93,000 miles per hour (150,000 kilometers per hour), which is faster than any object from the outer fringes of our neighborhood would be traveling. As NASA and an international team of experts announced last week, the signs all point to it passing through our Solar System on its way from some distant origin.
The astronomy community hasn't officially confirmed that C/2019 Q4 is interstellar yet, though everyone is nearly certain about its status. "After getting enough data, I suspect we'll be assigning a permanent designation to say this object is interstellar," Davide Farnocchia, who is studying the comet at NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at JPL, tells The Verge. "But basically, there's no doubt from the trajectory that it is interstellar." The good news is that if this comet is truly from outside our Solar System, we caught it at a great time -- when it was moving on its way in toward us, rather than on its way out. That means astronomers will have more than a year to continue observing this thing, allowing them to potentially refine its trajectory or even tell us what this mysterious rock is made of.
The astronomy community hasn't officially confirmed that C/2019 Q4 is interstellar yet, though everyone is nearly certain about its status. "After getting enough data, I suspect we'll be assigning a permanent designation to say this object is interstellar," Davide Farnocchia, who is studying the comet at NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at JPL, tells The Verge. "But basically, there's no doubt from the trajectory that it is interstellar." The good news is that if this comet is truly from outside our Solar System, we caught it at a great time -- when it was moving on its way in toward us, rather than on its way out. That means astronomers will have more than a year to continue observing this thing, allowing them to potentially refine its trajectory or even tell us what this mysterious rock is made of.
What do you mean? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Modern WoW or Classic WoW?
Visit for months (Score:1)
At which point, we will get tired of it flopping on our sofa and eating everything in the fridge.
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Comet Kramer?
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Then just open a Kenny Rogers Roasters and the comet will come to us
alien space rock? (Score:1)
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What are the chances of getting a sampling mission set up?
I know that we will certainly get spectroscopic analysis of the tail, but I really want to see what sort of organics are on that thing
Also, has anybody determined likely source solar system?
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Especially given its relative speed. No spacecraft (from Earth, anyways) has ever traveled anywhere near that fast, even after gravity assists.
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In theory we could send an impactor (just by putting something in the path of the comet), and hope some of the debris would have a speed/trajectory a second probe could sample.
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Oh.
Actually, the same work suggests that with a Jupiter fly-by then a Sun-grazing path ("Oberth manoeuvre"), a derivative of the Parker Solar Probe (technologies and designs needed to survive the close approach to the Sun) could be launched in about 2030 for an orbital intersection in about 2045. The Sun-dive is needed to get the
2I/Borisov (Score:5, Informative)
The scientific literature is already referring to it as 2I/Borisov, meaning the 2nd Interstellar object ever to be observed (after 1I/'Oumuamua).
Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov [arxiv.org]
There is also a paper on sending a spacecraft to it [arxiv.org]: if sent in 2030, it would reach it by 2045.
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It would be pretty neat to get a closer look at an interstellar object, and this one seems doable.
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They theorize launch dates in 2018 and 2030, but there would seem to be more opportunities than in the past (impossible) and 11 years from now (boring) .
Re:2I/Borisov (Score:5, Interesting)
The most exciting thing about this object, at least for me, isn't even the object itself. It's the extremely high probability that these things are plowing through all the damn time, and we don't have to wait decades or centuries for the next one.
On the down side, it pretty much drains any motivation to cobble together an interceptor for 'Oumuamua when we know there will be more opportunities.
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The most exciting thing about this object, at least for me, isn't even the object itself. It's the extremely high probability that these things are plowing through all the damn time.
And you didn't stop to think what else that might mean? We are a tiny target, to be sure, but if this thing will approach within the orbit of Mars which makes it a bit too close for my tastes. Two objects in the last few years (that we actually saw) and I'm starting to get a bit worried. Something this size could end life as we know it, for good.
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It hasn't happened yet (that we know of, the K-T Boundary asteroid may have been interstellar, how would we know?), but the odds haven't changed. All that has changed is that we are now aware of the magnitude of the problem. Stuff that comes in and flies out on a hyperbolic orbit is a threat once while dislodged asteroids and comets native to the system are a threat many times over as they have far more opportunities to hit something. Planet Nine has probably been responsible for flinging more shit our gene
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On the down side, it pretty much drains any motivation to cobble together an interceptor for 'Oumuamua when we know there will be more opportunities.
Agree, as much as 'Oumuamua was an unusual object the new one behaves quite typically for a comet (already out-gassing), so I miss the opportunity of the former flyby, which unfortunately, considering the tech we have, has sailed long ago.
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I'm not so sure that 'Oumuamua was that unusual an object -- the shape finally established for it is essentially a pancake, not a cigar, and we've seen pancakes stuck together in our own neighborhood (Ultima Thule). We'll probably see another one like it, although it would be nice if we had scrambled a project together to just get to it for a flyby or collision. That was feasible, and still might be, although the cost goes up by the day.
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The scientific literature is already referring to it as 2I/Borisov, meaning the 2nd Interstellar object ever to be observed (after 1I/'Oumuamua).
Thank you for your full explanation. I read 2I/Borisov as "2 liters of Borisov". Borisov is a cheap, nasty Vodka sold in Germany:
Borisov Wodka [peters70.com]
Maybe if some astronomers are up late on a cold night observing this, they might want to try a swig . . . ?
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Ha ha ...
Yes, the I (upper case i) is very misleading, since it can be read as an l (lower case el). But that is how our computers are ...
Astronomers these days do their observations electronically from heated rooms. The scope is in a separate comp
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People were certainly making the same complaints in the 1930s about the use of Sans Serif fonts on things like the (then new) London Underground map. For reference, that was before Turing published his work on the decidability problem, which introduced the idea of a computer whose instructions nad data were interchangeable.
For what it's worth I switched off the Firefox setting that al
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Sounds like the kind of Vodka where you buy 6 liters and the the seeing-eye dog for free in the bundle.
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Probably some kind of radio. Wired transmissions would present all sorts of problems.
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target earth (Score:1)
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Space invaders.. The game, the reality..
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I will not worry about it until one of these objects starts to slow down.
How come they now find them? (Score:1)
Has anyone gotten a new instrument for this?
Or are we just about to be hit by a swarm of interstellar debris? (I'm a dystopic optimist. I *hope* all goes well, and we're wiped out. ;)
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"Yes", but it isn't exactly a plain "yes".
There are on the order of a dozen scopes performing routine surveying for NEOs (following funding because of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9), and they're irregularly getting upgrades in the optics and the detector front which boil down to being able to detect fainter objects with shorter exposures. Simultaneously the computing side of things can handle more images more efficiently and perform finer analysis more automatically. On
Remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Ramans do everything in threes...
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So we should be ready to meet the next one, right?
Come on, Hawaiians! (Score:1)
Time to get your Hollywood stars and your academic sycophants to come out and prevent astronomers around the world from studying this. To use a famous old movie line, there are some things Man was not meant to know. Resist the threat of advancing knowledge now!