At the end of summer 2019, amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov discovered through a 65-centimeter telescope
During the first months, scientists debated whetherobject gb00234 (C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), or 2I/Borisov) can be considered an interstellar comet or is it an ordinary comet, just with a strong parabolic orbit. The scientific community has now recognized 2I/Borisov as the first interstellar comet.
The comet began to collapse on March 4, when the object moved away from the Sun, and its brightness increased to 0.7 magnitude. Astronomers believe that the reason for this was the increased activity of its core.
On April 2, using the Hubble telescope, researchers noticed that the 2I / Borisov shape changed dramatically - it turned into a more oblong object, which consists of two components.
Researchers believe that the comet's nucleus split into two unequal halves - with one of them thrown out of a coma.
"Continuing Observations of the Hubble Telescopebehind the interstellar object 2I/Borisov indicate dramatic changes in its appearance. Images taken on March 30 indicate that its core now consists of two objects separated by a distance of 180 km. The speed of their movement corresponds to the speed at which fragments of comets of the Solar System move after the splitting of their cores.”
David Jewett, lead author of the study
It was previously reported that ATLAS will become the brightest comet in two centuries of observation. It will approach the Earth and pass the perihelion on May 31, and then it will be located at a distance of 37.8 million km from the Sun.