[ad_1]
Scientists recently reported new details about the second interstellar object ever seen passing by our solar system. It is a comet called 2I / Borisov.
Comets are made up of frozen gases, rocks, and dust that orbit around stars. The Reuters news agency compares them to dirty snowballs. Comets leave a mixture of gas and dust in space as they move.
2I / Borisov is different from other comets, scientists have observed.
Researchers reported Monday that the gas coming out of 2I / Borisov had high levels of carbon monoxide, far more than comets formed in our solar system.
Carbon monoxide is poisonous to humans. It forms like ice only in the coldest places. The presence of so much carbon monoxide, according to the researchers, suggests that 2I / Borisov formed differently than comets in our solar system. It could have formed in a very cold part of your local star system or around a star cooler than the sun.
Dennis Bodewits is a planetary scientist at Auburn University in the United States. He was the leader Author from one of the two 2I / Borisov studies. Both appear in the Nature Astronomy publication.
“We like refer to 2I / Borisov like a snowman from a dark and cold place, “Bodewits said. He pointed out that” comets are leftover building blocks from the moment of planet formation. For the first time, we were able to measure the chemical composition of such a building block of another planetary system as it flew through our own solar system. “
Amateur Astronomer Gennady Borisov was the first person to identify the comet in August 2019. The comet is believed to be approximately 1 kilometer wide. It has flown through interstellar space after being ejected from its original star system.
Bodewits said the comet was born a long time ago in a mixture of gas and dust circling around a newly formed star. He said it came from a place that must have been rich in carbon monoxide.
That star may have been what is called an M dwarf, much smaller and cooler than our sun. Dwarf M stars are the smallest type of star known to scientists, Bodewits said.
At first, researchers believed that 2I / Borisov was like comets made in our solar system. However, the information gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope and an observatory in Chile showed differences.
The researchers also found a large amount of hydrogen cyanide at levels similar to comets in our solar system.
Martin Cordiner was the primary author of the second study. He said: “This shows that 2I / Borisov is not a completely foreign object, and confirms some similarity to our ‘normal’ comets, so the processes that shaped it are comparable to the way our own comets were formed.”
Cordiner is an astrobiologist who works for NASA, the US space agency. USA He is with the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
The only other interstellar visitor discovered in our solar system was a rocky object called “Oumuamua”. It was found in 2017.
I’m John Russell
Will Dunham reported this story to Reuters. John Russell adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
We want to hear from you. Write us in the comments section.
________________________________________________________________
Words in this story
interstellar – adj. existing or present among stars
solar – adj. of or related to the sun
Author – n. a writer of a book or report
refer – v. to write down or suggest
composition – n. the way something is put together or arranged
amateur – n. a person who does something (such as a sport or hobby) for pleasure and not as work
