{"id":23712,"date":"2021-03-30T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T16:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=23712"},"modified":"2021-03-29T12:42:24","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T16:42:24","slug":"eso-interstellar-object-could-be-the-most-pristine-comet-ever-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=23712","title":{"rendered":"ESO: Interstellar object could be the most pristine comet ever seen"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO)<\/a><\/p>\n

First interstellar comet may be the most pristine ever found<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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This image was taken with the FORS2 instrument on ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope in late 2019, when comet 2I\/Borisov passed near the Sun. Since the comet was travelling at breakneck speed, around 175 000 kilometres per hour, the background stars appeared as streaks of light as the telescope followed the comet\u2019s trajectory. The colours in these streaks give the image some disco flair and are the result of combining observations in different wavelength bands, highlighted by the various colours in this composite image.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New observations with the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope (ESO\u2019s VLT) indicate that the rogue comet 2I\/Borisov, which is only the second and most recently detected interstellar visitor to our Solar System, is one of the most pristine ever observed. Astronomers suspect that the comet most likely never passed close to a star, making it an undisturbed relic of the cloud of gas and dust it formed from.<\/p>\n

2I\/Borisov was discovered by amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov in August 2019 and was confirmed to have come from beyond the Solar System a few weeks later.<\/p>\n

\u201c2I\/Borisov could represent the first truly pristine comet ever observed,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

says Stefano Bagnulo of the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, Northern Ireland, UK, who led the new study published today in Nature Communications. The team believes that the comet had never passed close to any star before it flew by the Sun in 2019.<\/p>\n

Bagnulo and his colleagues used the FORS2 instrument on ESO’s VLT, located in northern Chile, to study 2I\/Borisov in detail using a technique called polarimetry [1<\/a>]. Since this technique is regularly used to study comets and other small bodies of our Solar System, this allowed the team to compare the interstellar visitor with our local comets.<\/p>\n