It's tough being in a new environment, even for comets. According to recent observations, interstellar Comet Borisov may be having outbursts triggered by flying through our solar system and past our sun.
The comet, now dubbed Borisov, first caught skywatchers' attention in late August 2019. Repeated observations of the object traced its trajectory, and astronomers determined that its strange path meant that the comet could only have come from beyond our solar system and was just passing through our neighborhood.
Check out this next:
Interstellar comet Borisov may be breaking up as it exits solar system | New Scientist
The interstellar comet 2I/Borisov is starting to brighten, suggesting it may be breaking apart as it makes its way out of our solar system.
The comet was first spotted in August last year, and astronomers have been keenly following it ever since. A team in Poland was the first to report outbursts from the comet in early March, more than doubling its brightness. That suggests it is emitting material after being heated by the sun during its close approach in December 2019. …
Earth Has Lost Its Mini-Moon - The Atlantic
The first, of course, was the one we've always had. The other was a fairly recent addition, about the size of a compact car— too tiny to tug on any oceans and invisible to the naked eye. In a chance encounter, gravitational forces had pulled the space rock away from an orbit around the sun and tossed it into one around us.
* * *
"There's no question it was still in orbit around the Earth in early February, and there's no question now that it's in orbit around the sun," Bill Gray, an astronomy-software developer, told me.
10+ Things to Do with NASA at Home – NASA Solar System Exploration
Straw Rocket: Create a paper rocket that can be launched from a soda straw – then, modify the design to make the rocket fly farther! | › Go to Activity Page
Launch rockets, build hovercraft, create a winning science project and more. These science, technology, engineering and math activities are fun for the whole family. Check back for regular updates: https://www.nasa.gov/stem-at-home-for-students-k-4.html
Get up early this week for planet and crescent Moon pairings. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
And here's another article:
Space news: How Earth could be EJECTED from solar system - study | Science | News | Express.co.uk
Paul M Sutter, a Stony Brook University research professor not involved in the study, explained what happens when a rogue star comes close to our solar system.
He told space.com: “As a star nears the solar system, it can start to change the orbit of the Earth.
“When the Earth and the interloper are near, our planet can get a little bit of energy, a gentle gravitational tug-of-the-leash from the foreign visitor.
“This may not amount to much, but if this happens year after year, the Earth can steadily gain energy, moving its position farther away from the sun, out of the "habitable zone," the band of orbits around the sun that aren't too close for surface water to vaporize or too far for it to turn to ice.
Is this what our solar system's 'force field' looks like? - Futurity
Is this what the heliosphere looks like? New research suggests so. Astrophysicists have long debated the size and shape of the magnetic "force field" that protects our solar system from deadly cosmic rays. (Credit: Opher, et. al)
* * *
A new model that’s shaped somewhere between a croissant and a beach ball could resolve a long debate about the protective bubble around our solar system, researchers report.
Space physicists call this bubble the heliosphere. It is a vast region, extending more than twice as far as Pluto, that casts a magnetic “force field” around all the planets, deflecting charged particles that would otherwise muscle into the solar system and even tear through your DNA, should you be unlucky enough to get in their way.
Astrophysicists Reveal a New Model of Our Solar System's Protective Bubble, the Heliosphere
Is this what the heliosphere looks like? New research suggests so. The size and shape of the magnetic “force field” that protects our solar system from deadly cosmic rays has long been debated by astrophysicists. Credit: Image courtesy of Opher, et. al
Boston University astrophysicist and collaborators reveal a new model of our heliosphere that’s shaped somewhere between a croissant and a beach ball.
In 2015, using a new computer model and data from the Voyager 1 spacecraft, Merav Opher, professor of astronomy and researcher at Boston University’s Center for Space Physics, and her coauthor James Drake of the University of Maryland came to a different conclusion: they proposed that the heliosphere is actually shaped like a crescent–not unlike a freshly baked croissant, in fact.
Over 100 Minor Planets Have Been Discovered at the Edge of the Solar System
Astronomers have identified nearly 140 previously unknown minor planets in the outer reaches of the solar system beyond the orbit of Neptune.
An international team of researchers analyzed four year's worth of data collected by the Dark Energy Survey (DES)—an astronomical project aimed at investigating the dynamics of the universe's expansion by imaging the southern sky.
The DES wasn't designed specifically to look for objects such as minor planets, however, the data it has gathered has proven to be especially useful for this task. Minor planets are any astronomical object in orbit around the Sun which are not fully-fledged planets or comets—for example, dwarf planets or asteroids.
Happening on Twitter
Is interstellar Comet Borisov breaking apart as it leaves our solar system? https://t.co/SO2Yjl6bec https://t.co/r8dHhX2kg2 SPACEdotcom (from NYC) Sun Mar 22 14:22:33 +0000 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment