Astronomers Just Spotted First-Known Interstellar Comet


For centuries, skywatchers have put on record the movements of thousands of comets. They have come from some spot in our own solar system, either the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune or the much more distant Oort Cloud at the fringes of the Sun's realm.


As reported by skyandtelescope, An object swept up and was observed a week ago using the PanSTARRS 1telescope atop Haleakala on Maui has quite fascinating orbit — it's on a hyperbolic trajectory that doesn't appear to be bound to the Sun. As published earlier today by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center suggest that its a comet that escaped from another star.
It passed closest to Earth on October 14th at a distance of about 24,000,000 km,NASA
Now it's headed out of the solar system, never to return and astronomers worldwide have been tracking it in the hopes of divining its true nature.
According to Gray, Comet PanSTARRS appears to have entered our solar system from where the constellation Lyra is and it seems like it entered the solar system moving at 26 km per second. 

0 comments:

Post a Comment