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MADRID, Apr 28 (EUROPA PRESS) –
For the first time, NASA’s Swift Neil Gehrels Observatory has successfully calculate the lost water of an interstellar comet As the Sun approached and circled. The object, dubbed 2I / Borisov, traveled through the solar system in late 2019.
Comets are frozen objects of gases mixed with dust, often called “dirty snowballs”. When one approaches the Sun, the frozen material on its surface heats up and turns into gas.
When sunlight separates the water molecules, one of the fragments is hydroxyl, a molecule made up of an oxygen atom and a hydrogen atom. Swift detects the fingerprint of the ultraviolet light emitted by the hydroxyl using its optical / ultraviolet (UVOT) telescope. Between September and February, Swift made six Borisov observations with Swift. He saw a 50% increase in the amount of hydroxyl, and thus water, that Borisov produced between November 1 and December 1, which was only seven days from the comet’s closest encounter with the Sun.
At peak activity, Borisov threw 30 liters of water per second, enough to fill a bathtub in about 10 seconds. During its journey through the solar system, the comet lost almost 230 million liters of water, enough to fill more than 92 Olympic swimming pools. As it drifted away from the Sun, Borisov’s water loss decreased, and it did so more rapidly than any previously observed comet, NASA reports.
Swift’s water production measurements also helped show that Borisov’s minimum size is less than 740 meters wide. The team estimates that at least 55% of Borisov’s surface actively dumped material when it was closer to the Sun. That’s a large fraction compared to most observed comets in the solar system.
Borisov has some features in common with comets in the solar system. Its increase in water production as it approached the Sun was similar to the objects previously observed. Other molecules in Borisov’s chemical inventory, and their abundances, are also similar to homegrown comets. For example, regarding hydroxyl and cyanogen, a compound composed of carbon and nitrogen, Borisov produced a small amount of diatomic carbon, a molecule made of two carbon atoms, and amidogen, a molecule derived from ammonia. About 25% to 30% of all comets in the solar system share that trait.
