An update on Comet 2I/Borisov
Link here.
Overall, this second known interstellar object to pass through the solar system appears to be a very typical comet. They have found however that its nucleus is much smaller than at first thought, only 200 to 500 meters across, which means that radiation pressure from the Sun could cause its rotation to spin up, with the possibility that this spin could get fast enough to cause the comet to break up.
The comet made its closest approach to the Sun in December, and will spend the next year-plus flying outward to beyond Saturn.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Link here.
Overall, this second known interstellar object to pass through the solar system appears to be a very typical comet. They have found however that its nucleus is much smaller than at first thought, only 200 to 500 meters across, which means that radiation pressure from the Sun could cause its rotation to spin up, with the possibility that this spin could get fast enough to cause the comet to break up.
The comet made its closest approach to the Sun in December, and will spend the next year-plus flying outward to beyond Saturn.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
The thought occurred to me today that if these interstellar visitors are genuinely more common than we ever thought, (2 detected in a few years seems to indicate this…), would it not be possible to have a mission ready and waiting to land on one and hitch a ride out of our solar system?
I know there is talk of having something ready to go and analyse such an interloper, but surely a lander with the ability to just sit along for the ride… If equipped with a power source able to last a couple of hundred years ( a big chunk of plutonium, rather than the little ones still powering the voyagers) could send back invaluable data about the journey, and not just the destination
I know I am jumping on this a little late but I thought I’d weight in on Lee’s question of hitching a ride with the comet. Unless your goal is long term study of the comet as it leaves the solar system, there wouldn’t be much point to building a spacecraft with the delta V needed to reach it. If the comet is already traveling fast enough to escape the sun, then your spacecraft would have to have enough delta V to match that velocity and escape the sun it’s self. So you wouldn’t save anything by flying a rendezvous with the comet, your craft would more or less be trapped on what ever exit trajectory the comet takes.
If you are looking to just leave the solar system however, then your best bet with current technology would be to combine a nuclear power source with electric propulsion and go for a few gravity assists around the solar system to achieve the highest delta V possible. Even then though you have the problem of where are you going to go? If Voyager 1 were aimed at Apha Centauri, it would take it about 40,000 years to get there. Even at 10% of the speed of light, which we can’t currently do, it would still take you 40 years to get there. So with today’s technology you would end up launching a very large, very expensive museum piece that we might pick up in a hundred years or so and bring back to Earth using a fusion powered vessel, or if we could solve some of the niggling problems with it, an Alcubierre White warp drive. My point being, with the current state of our technology, interstellar voyages aren’t on the table yet.