Astronomers tracking comet originating beyond solar system
"The comet has some similarities to 2I/Borisov in that it appears to be an icy comet, but it is much larger, possibly 10km in diameter," Denneau said.
"It currently has a faint coma," Denneau added, referring to the cloud of gas and dust surrounding a comet's nucleus, "but the coma and tail may increase dramatically as the object comes closer to the sun. Its closest approach to the sun will be later this year, when it will come inside the orbit of Mars. We don't know what will happen, so that's exciting."
Astronomers said the comet poses no threat to Earth and will never come closer than 240 million km away, equivalent to more than 1-1/2 times the distance between Earth and the sun. It is currently located about 670 million km from the sun and will reach its closest approach to the sun around October 30, when it will be about 210 million km away from our star.
The ATLAS network is a NASA-funded telescope survey built and operated by the University of Hawaii, with five telescopes around the world that scan the night sky continuously to look for objects that could threaten Earth.
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