Related papers: Sending a Spacecraft to Interstellar Comet 2I/Bori…
The interstellar comet 2I/Borisov is the first interstellar object where compositional characterisation was possible throughout its entire perihelion passage. We report all 16 epochs of a comprehensive optical observation campaign with ESO…
The composition of comets in the Solar System come in multiple groups thought to encode information about their formation in different regions of the outer protosolar disk. The recent discovery of the second interstellar object, 2I/Borisov,…
With the advent of more and deeper sky surveys, the discovery of interstellar small objects entering into the Solar System has been finally possible. In October 19, 2017, using observations of the Pan-STARRS survey, a fast moving object,…
Comet Interceptor is an ESA F-class mission expected to launch in 2028 on the same launcher as ESA's ARIEL mission. Comet Interceptor's science payload consists of three spacecraft, a primary spacecraft that will carry two smaller probes to…
Interstellar objects such as 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov offer a unique window into the formation and evolution of other star systems, yet the tracking and analysis of their trajectories remain limited to specialized research institutions.…
Interstellar Objects (ISO) passing through our Solar System offer a rare opportunity to probe the physical and chemical processes involved in solid body and planet formation in extrasolar systems. The main objective of our study is to…
In the nearly 60 years of spaceflight we have accomplished wonderful feats of exploration that have shown the incredible spirit of the human drive to explore and understand our universe. Yet in those 60 years we have barely left our solar…
The detection of interstellar bodies passing near the Sun offers the opportunity to observe not just objects similar to those in the solar system, but also unfamiliar objects without solar system analogues. Here I show that Asymptotic Giant…
The interstellar traveler, 2I/Borisov, is the first clearly active extrasolar comet, ever detected in our Solar system. We obtained high-resolution interferometric observations of 2I/Borisov with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter…
2I/Borisov - hereafter 2I - is the first visibly active interstellar comet observed in the solar system, allowing us for the first time to sample the composition of a building block from another system. We report on the monitoring of 2I…
We processed images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to investigate any morphological features in the inner coma suggestive of a peculiar activity on the nucleus of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. The coma shows an evident…
During the formation of our solar system, a large number of planetesimals were ejected into interstellar space by gravitational encounters with the planets. Debris disks observations and numerical simulations indicate that many other…
We simulate the passage through the Sun-Jupiter system of interstellar objects (ISOs) similar to 1I/`Oumuamua or 2I/Borisov. Capture of such objects is rare and overwhelmingly from low incoming speeds onto orbits akin to those of known…
In this work, we present the results of an observational study of 2I/Borisov carried out with the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) and the 3.6-m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), both telescopes located at the Roque de Los Muchachos…
The recent discovery of the first confirmed Interstellar Objects (ISOs) passing through the Solar System on clearly hyperbolic objects opens the potential for near term ISO missions, either to the two known objects, or to similar objects…
Based on the occurrence rates implied by the discoveries of 1I/`Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, the forthcoming Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) should detect $\ge1$ interstellar objects every year (Hoover et al. 2021). We…
The earliest confirmed interstellar object, `Oumuamua, was discovered in the Solar System by Pan-STARRS in 2017, allowing for a calibration of the abundance of interstellar objects of its size $\sim 100\;$ m. This was followed by the…
Preliminary spacecraft trajectories for 45 Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and Pluto suitable for launch between 2025 and 2040 are presented. These 46 objects comprise all objects with H magnitude < 4.0 or which have received a name from the…
The image of comet 2I/Borisov taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on October 12 shows a fan-like feature in the inner coma, which extends over a few arcseconds from the nuclear condensation, its axis pointing a little west of the north. It…
The discovery of two interstellar objects passing through the Solar System, 1I/`Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, implies that a galactic population exists with a spatial number density of order $\sim0.1$ au$^{-3}$. The forthcoming Rubin Observatory…