This Hubble image, taken on October 12, 2019, is the sharpest view of the comet. Hubble shows the Central concentration of dust around the core (which is too small to be seen by Hubble). Photo: NASA, ESA and D. Jewitt (UCLA)

The Hubble space telescope has returned an image of a comet that originated outside our Solar system, giving astronomers their best view yet of interstellar visitors 260 million miles from Earth.

Scientists have confirmed that the object originated outside our Solar system by tracking its movement, allowing experts to spread its course back in time. Comet 2I/Borisov follows a hyperbolic trajectory, and will travel back into interstellar space after its closest approach to the Sun on December 7, at a distance twice as far from the Sun as Earth, according to NASA.

? While another star system may be very different from our own, the fact that the properties of the comet appear to be very similar to those of the solar system? said Amaya Moreau-Martin of the space telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

Comet 2I / Borisov is the second interstellar object detected passing through our Solar system, something long predicted by astronomers.

The object, called Oumuamua, or 1I/2017 U1, was discovered in October 2017, a few weeks after it makes its closest pass to the sun. Scientists have confirmed that Omwamwi came from interstellar space, and he had an unusual elongated shape like a cigar or a Frisbee.

? Eh? Oumuamua turned out to be a stone, Borisov is really active, more like an ordinary comet. It’s a mystery why these two are so different,? said David Jewitt of the University of California, Los Angeles, the leader of the Hubble team that observed the comet.

All comets studied before 2I/Borisov came from the Kuiper belt, a ring of icy debris beyond Neptune’s orbit, or from the Oort cloud, a spherical shell of icy objects located between 200 billion miles (320 billion kilometers) and 9 trillion miles (14 trillion trillion miles (14 trillion trillion) kilometers) from the sun.

Crimean Amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov discovered the comet on August 30. After confirming the comet’s interstellar origin, professional astronomers used ground-based observatories for detailed observations.

In a study published October 14 in Nature Astronomy, Polish astronomers wrote that the comet has a reddish hue and a solid core about 1 kilometer in diameter, or 3,300 feet.

? Make it what you will, but based on these initial characteristics, this object seems indistinguishable from the comet’s native solar system,? said Peter Guzik of Jagiellonian University, who led the study.

? We immediately noticed the familiar coma and tail that were not seen around? Omwamwi,? said Michal Drachus of Jagiellonian University, who co-led the study with Guzik. ? This is really great because it means that our new visitor is one of these mythical and never seen before ?real? interstellar comets.?

The comet gets brighter as it travels closer to the Sun, so additional observations could reveal more details. Astronomers plan to observe the comet in the coming months with ground-based telescopes and Hubble.

? We can safely say that research on this body will be transformative for planetary astronomy and a milestone for astronomy in General.? this is stated in the statement Guzik.

Although astronomers have found only two interstellar objects traveling through the Solar system, scientists believe such interlopers are regular visitors. But they are often dim and move very quickly, making them difficult to detect.

? New comets are always unpredictable,? said Max Mutchler, another member of Hubble’s surveillance team. ? Sometimes they brighten suddenly or even begin to fragment as they are exposed to the intense heat of the Sun for the first time. Hubble is ready to monitor everything that happens next with its superior sensitivity and resolution.?

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