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Scientists have discovered that a comet named 2I / Borisov, just the second detected interstellar object passing through the solar system, is surprisingly different in composition from comets from our heavenly neighborhood.
Artist’s impression of the interstellar comet 2I / Borisov as it travels through our solar system
WASHINGTON: Scientists have discovered that a comet named 2I / Borisov – just the second detected interstellar object passing through the solar system – is surprisingly different in composition from comets from our heavenly neighborhood.
The gas from 2I / Borisov contained high amounts of carbon monoxide, far more than comets formed in our solar system, indicating that the object had high concentrations of carbon monoxide ice, researchers said Monday.
Carbon monoxide, poisonous to humans, is common as a gas in space and forms as 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, in a very cold outer region of its local star system or around a colder star than the Sun.
Comets are essentially dirty snowballs made up of frozen gases, rocks, and dust that orbit around stars.
“We like to refer to 2I / Borisov as a snowman from a dark and cold place,” said planetary scientist Dennis Bodewits of Auburn University in Alabama, lead author of one of two 2I / Borisov studies published in the journal Nature. Astronomy.
“Comets are leftover building blocks from the moment of planet formation. For the first time, we have been able to measure the chemical composition of that building block from another planetary system while flying through our own solar system,” Bodewits added. .
Detected in August 2019 by amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov and estimated to be approximately six-tenths of a mile (1 km) wide, the comet has expanded through interstellar space after being ejected from its original star system.
It was born a long time ago in a spinning disk of gas and dust surrounding a newly formed star in a place that must have been rich in carbon monoxide, Bodewits said. That star may have been what is called an M dwarf, much smaller and cooler than the sun and the smallest type of star known, Bodewits said.
Scientists initially concluded last year that 2I / Borisov was similar to comets in our solar system, but data from the Hubble Space Telescope and an observatory in Chile revealed their differences.
The researchers also found an abundance of hydrogen cyanide at levels similar to comets in our solar system.
“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,” said Martin Cordiner , an astrobiologist who works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and lead author of the other study.
The only other interstellar visitor discovered in our solar system was a cigar-shaped rock object called ‘Oumuamua seen in 2017.
(Reporting by Will Dunham; Sandra Maler’s Edition)
