First data suggests Comet Borisov resembles solar comets
The first spectrum obtained from Comet Borisov suggests that it is quite similar to comets in our solar system.
The gas detected was cyanogen, made of a carbon atom and a nitrogen atom bonded together. It is a toxic gas if inhaled, but it is relatively common in comets.
The team concluded that the most remarkable thing about the comet is that it appears ordinary in terms of the gas and dust it is emitting. It looks like it was born 4.6 billion years ago with the other comets in our Solar system, yet has come from an – as yet – unidentified star system.
It is still very early, so drawing any firm conclusions at this point is risky.
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The first spectrum obtained from Comet Borisov suggests that it is quite similar to comets in our solar system.
The gas detected was cyanogen, made of a carbon atom and a nitrogen atom bonded together. It is a toxic gas if inhaled, but it is relatively common in comets.
The team concluded that the most remarkable thing about the comet is that it appears ordinary in terms of the gas and dust it is emitting. It looks like it was born 4.6 billion years ago with the other comets in our Solar system, yet has come from an – as yet – unidentified star system.
It is still very early, so drawing any firm conclusions at this point is risky.
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 this year has the propaganda 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 refuse 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.
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5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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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.
I hereby invoke the Mediocrity Principle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle
I’m wondering just how far from its starting point our sun/solar system has drifted in the last 4. billion years. My thought is, Sol and presumably a few hundred or a few thousand stars must have coalesced in some cloud of dust and gas and debris — a cluster, call it — at some relatively limited space with a fairly uniform composition. Over time, these young stars have probably moved some distance apart, but it’s not implausible that we have near neighbors with similar distributions of elements and isotopes.
To Mike Shupp’s point, I do not understand the desire to invest resources investigating difficult to reach interstellar visitors, when they are almost certainly made of the same stuff as our domestic, and much easier to reach, solar bodies.
Blair Ivey: You are making a very dangerous assumption, that other solar systems “are almost certainly made of the same stuff” as our own. We do not know that. Moreover, the odds are that things are not the same, as each star forms in its own unique environment that determines its make-up.
Even more important, understanding better the range and variety of solar systems is critical to determining whether life is common or rare. Life needs certain components which happen to be abundant on Earth. They might not be so elsewhere. We need to find out. Comet Borisov is providing us a first hint.
Amplifying my remarks, we estimate our sun’s age as 4.6 billion years roughly. Many of the stars about us — e Eridani or Sirius or Procyon for instance — are known to be younger, and some — Alpha Centauri comes to mind — appear to be older. I.e., not all our “neighbors” today came from the same place that Sol did. What I’m unclear about is whether some of our neighboring stars and our sun shared the same birth region, and how many of these solar siblings happen to be in our neck of the galactic woods. Must be some, I think, but I’m just handwaving. I recall reading once Sol has moved about 10,000 LY outward in the galaxy from where it was formed, but I don’t remember where I saw that, and I don’t recall if the hypothesis had evidence behind it or was just some astronomer’s handwaving.
Enquiring minds wish to know!
mike shupp: You should dig up my Sky & Telescope article from March 2012. It was the cover story: “Finding the Sun’s lost nursery.” In it I provide the answers to your questions, as far as we presently know.
Will do and thank you!
Col Beausabre invoked the Mediocrity Principle. We should keep in mind that the stars are like humans. Each of us is unique, just like everyone else.
The detection of cyanogen reminds me of the panic in 1910 when Halley’s Comet came by Earth. Some thought that the cyanogen in the comet’s tail would poison everyone on earth.
http://www.oocities.org/~lauferworld/Cometpills.htm