Newly Discovered Comet Is Likely Interstellar Visitor
A newly discovered comet has excited the astronomical community this week because it appears to have originated from outside the solar system.
The object โ designated C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) โ was discovered on Aug. 30, 2019, by Gennady Borisov at the MARGO observatory in Nauchnij, Crimea.
The official confirmation that comet C/2019 Q4 is an interstellar comet has not yet been made, but if it is interstellar, it would be only the second such object detected. The first, โOumuamua, was observed and confirmed in October 2017.
The new comet, C/2019 Q4, is still inbound toward the Sun, but it will remain farther than the orbit of Mars and will approach no closer to Earth than about 190 million miles (300 million kilometers).

The comet is currently 260 million miles (420 million kilometers) from the Sun and will reach its closest point, or perihelion, on Dec. 8, 2019, at a distance of about 190 million miles (300 million kilometers).
โThe cometโs current velocity is high, about 93,000 mph [150,000 kph], which is well above the typical velocities of objects orbiting the Sun at that distance,โ said Farnocchia. โThe high velocity indicates not only that the object likely originated from outside our solar system, but also that it will leave and head back to interstellar space.โ
Currently on an inbound trajectory, comet C/2019 Q4 is heading toward the inner solar system. On Oct. 26, it will pass through the ecliptic plane โ the plane in which Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun โ from above at roughly a 40-degree angle.
Comet C/2019 Q4 as imaged by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Hawaiiโs Big Island on Sept. 10, 2019.

Observations completed by Karen Meech and her team at the University of Hawaii indicate the comet nucleus is somewhere between 1.2 and 10 miles (2 and 16 kilometers) in diameter. Astronomers will continue collect observations to further characterize the cometโs physical properties (size, rotation, etc.) and also continue to better identify its trajectory.
The Minor Planet Center is hosted by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and is a sub-node of NASAโs Planetary Data System Small Bodies Node at the University of Maryland. JPL hosts the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. All are projects of NASAโs Near-Earth Object Observations Program and elements of the agencyโs Planetary Defense Coordination Office within NASAโs Science Mission Directorate.
Contacts and sources:
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects can be found at:
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch
For more information about NASAโs Planetary Defense Coordination Office, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense
Trackback from your site.