哈勃拍下了星際彗星掠過地球時的快照

哈勃拍下了星際彗星掠過地球時的快照

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took snapshots of 2I/Borisov, which you can see in the video above provided by Goddard Space Flight Center. It's the sharpest view of the comet to date.

美國宇航局的哈勃太空望遠鏡拍攝了2I/Borisov的快照，你可以在戈達德太空飛行中心提供的視頻中看到。這是迄今為止最清晰的彗星圖片。

Hubble captured comet 2I/Borisov streaking through our solar system about three weeks before it reached its closest point to the sun. (Photo: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA))

An amateur astronomer from Crimea named Gennady Borisov first spotted the fast-moving fleck in the night sky in August. Soon after, several telescopes confirmed a trajectory that would take it within 190 million miles of our sun. The photo above was taken as the comet was traveling at 175,000 kilometres per hour (roughly 109,000 miles per hour) as it was headed for a rendezvous with the sun.

來自克里米亞的業(yè)余天文學(xué)家根納季·鮑里索夫于今年8月首次在夜空中發(fā)現(xiàn)了快速移動的斑點。不久之后，幾架望遠鏡確認了一條軌跡，該軌跡將把它帶到距離太陽1.9億英里以內(nèi)的地方。這張照片拍攝于彗星以每小時175000公里(大約每小時109000英里)的速度與太陽會合的時候。

The photos are significant because while this comet won't be staying with us long, it still reveal clues about the solar system it came from.

這些照片意義重大，因為雖然這顆彗星不會在我們身邊停留太久，但它仍然揭示了它來自太陽系的一些線索。

2I/Borisov was known as C/2019 Q4 before it became official. (Photo: Gemini Observatory/NSF/AURA)

The Gemini Observatory snapped an earlier full-color picture of the celestial body as it streaked through the heavens. Its woolly white halo and telltale tail were the first hints that we were entertaining our first interstellar comet.

雙子座天文臺早些時候拍攝了一張?zhí)祗w劃過天空的全彩照片。它毛茸茸的白色光暈和尾巴是我們招待第一顆星際彗星的第一個線索。

Scientists at the International Astronomers Union (IAU) concurred with their findings, designating it the second interstellar object; it was crowned 2I/Borisov to honor that status.

國際天文學(xué)家聯(lián)盟(IAU)的科學(xué)家們同意他們的發(fā)現(xiàn)，把它指定為第二個星際物體;它被命名為2I/Borisov以紀念這一地位。

From another world

來自另一個世界

It's only the second time we've detected an interstellar object. (In fact those first few letters of its official name stand for second interstellar.) The comets that typically blaze through our neighborhood hail from within the solar system — either from that icy outermost region known as the Oort Cloud or the Kuiper Belt, a veritable comet factory just beyond Neptune's orbit.

這是我們第二次探測到星際物體。(事實上，它的官方名稱的前幾個字母代表著第二部《星際穿越》。)通常在我們周圍閃耀的彗星來自太陽系內(nèi)部——要么來自被稱為奧爾特云的冰冷的最外層區(qū)域，要么來自海王星軌道外的柯伊伯帶——一個名副其實的彗星工廠。

Artist's impression of the first known interstellar asteroid, 'Oumuamua. (Photo: M. Kornmesser/ESO)

Strangely enough, this is the second time we've had an interstellar visitor in as many years. In 2017, a very strange object known as 'Oumuamua graced our solar system. Its unwieldy, cigar-like dimensions, unknown origin point and blazing speed sparked a frenzy of scientific speculation. While some scientists suggested it's a hobbled, tail-less comet that has been wandering the galaxy for billions of years, others just came right out and said what many of us were thinking: alien spaceship.

奇怪的是，這是這么多年來我們第二次迎來星際訪客。2017年，一顆名為“Oumuamua”的奇怪天體為我們的太陽系增添了光彩。它笨拙的，雪茄一樣的尺寸，未知的起源點和驚人的速度引發(fā)了瘋狂的科學(xué)推測。雖然一些科學(xué)家認為這是一顆步履蹣跚、沒有尾巴的彗星，在銀河系中徘徊了數(shù)十億年，但也有一些科學(xué)家直接走出來，說出了我們許多人所想的:外星飛船。

2I/Borisov is a little less ambiguous. Even though it was born in an incomprehensibly foreign space, it bears all the telltale trappings of comethood — specifically a lustrous tail of glitter likely caused by outgassing from its ice-cold heart.

2I/Borisov就不那么模糊了。盡管它出生在一個不可思議的陌生空間，但它身上卻有著所有能說明問題的特質(zhì)——特別是一條閃閃發(fā)亮的尾巴，很可能是由它冰冷的心臟釋放出的氣體造成的。

"Whereas 'Oumuamua appeared to be a rock, Borisov is really active, more like a normal comet. It's a puzzle why these two are so different," said Jewitt.

“雖然Oumuamua看起來像是一塊巖石，但Borisov確實很活躍，更像是一顆普通的彗星。為什么這兩個如此不同是一個謎。”Jewitt說。