It’s a mass of gas and dust that’s less than a mile across and is traveling through space at around 100,000 miles an hour.The Hubble telescope is tracking the 21/Borisov comet as it makes an approach to the sun.
“It looks like a fuzzy blob,” NASA planetary astronomer Heidi Hammel tells KTRH News. “That fuzz is gas and dust that has come off the comet itself.”
This is the second interstellar object NASA has monitored, the first Oumuamua in 2017.There may be more out there that are too faint to be seen.
“These are images of an interstellar visitor.A comet that we believe has come from another planetary system and is winging its way through our planetary system,” says Hammel.
Last Sunday Borisov came within 190 miles of earth, the closest we’ll get to it.By June the comet will be whizzing by Jupiter on its way out of the Milky Way and off to another solar system.