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Just Passing Through! A Second Interstellar Object Detected.

By Robert Trembley  |  13 Sep 2019

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Artist impression of hyperbolic comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov). Credit: SpaceEngine / Bob Trembley

On September 10th, a tweet caught my attention:

Time to call it, #gb00234 is interstellar (he said with no authority or to call such things). https://t.co/9oVHmifV4K

— Nick Ascroft (@assscroft) September 11, 2019

Apparently the object named #gb00234 was a second interstellar object on a hyperbolic trajectory through the solar system! Over the next couple days, more information about the object was posted:

Here's my best fit (ICRF, barycentric) to the CNEOS astrometry for potential interstellar #gb00234

Conservatively assuming 1 arcsec astrometric uncertainty and dropping the really bad points, eccentricity is 1.07180496 +/- 0.00087880

That's definitely hyperbolic. More coming pic.twitter.com/kxVPqMpd6J

— Simon Porter (@AscendingNode) September 11, 2019

Here's what the residuals look like. The very first epoch is a bit off, and there's some curve to the RA, which may be due to cometary non-gravs (basically outgassing as a rocket). Hard to tell with the quality of the data, though. pic.twitter.com/Tw8E93G8dd

— Simon Porter (@AscendingNode) September 11, 2019

Here's a remarkable animation of #gb00234, which may be our second known interstellar visitor, taken by astronomer Gennady Borisov – who discovered the object.

2l/Borisov, perhaps?

(source: https://t.co/vkYXrK6KBC) pic.twitter.com/WObsGj3HJH

— Jonathan O’Callaghan (@Astro_Jonny) September 11, 2019

Then I saw this post, which had the comet’s name: C/2019 Q4:

#gb00234 is now recognized as a hyperbolic comet called C/2019 Q4.#C/2019Q$
Here is a simulation of its hyperbolic trajectory through our solar system. It will run in your browser.https://t.co/3lgsl0NxzV pic.twitter.com/qf9MDkkxh4

— Tony Dunn (@tony873004) September 11, 2019

I plugged the name into JPL’s Small Body Database Browser, and found it!

Hyperbolic comet C/2019 Q4 in the inner solar system. Credit: JPL Small Body Database.
Hyperbolic comet C/2019 Q4 hyperbolic trajectory in the outer solar system. Credit: JPL Small Body Database.

Dr. Heidi Hammel tweeted that she wished people would not post about this new object using the image of asteroid ʻOumuamua, the first interstellar object detected:

I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that the new putative interstellar object will NOT have a very skewed aspect ratio a la ‘Oumuamua, so I wish folks would stop using O’s illustration. If it DOES, that that will lead to some VERY interesting science discussions…

— Dr Heidi B. Hammel (@hbhammel) September 12, 2019

So I created the new object in SpaceEngine, with an oblateness value of 0.8, and used that image as this post’s header – go ahead and use that image if you wish!

Here’s the artist impression image of asteroid ʻOumuamua to jog your memory:

ʻOumuamua Artist’s impression of ʻOumuamua, the first known interstellar object to pass through the Solar System. Original: ESO/M. Kornmesser Derivative: nagualdesign

This new object will be visible for months, making it’s closest approach to Earth in December; astronomers will have lots of time to observe it! I’ll be following developments, and keep you posted in my In the Sky posts.

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