A new Comet known as 31/ATLAS ( Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System) is approaching the solar system.....this was spotted by Astronomers on 1st of July....
So many comets appear and disappear but the thing that is special about this comet is that it does not belong to our solar system and is coming into it from interstellar space....which means it is from another star.....till now our telescopes had an opportunity to view only 2 such objects from close quarters and they are the Comet "Oumuamua" in the year 2017 and 21/Borisov discovered in the year 2019.....that makes it only the 3rd interstellar object entering our solar system...
This would give our Astronomers a good opportunity to study an object from another star and not the sun ....
The comet is travelling in a hyperbolic orbit which would carry it away from our solar system and it is therefore once in a lifetime event....it is travelling at a speed of 58 Km/Sec relative to the Sun...it only has a diameter of about 1Km...its closest approach to the Sun would be on 29th October at which time it would be at a distance of over 20 crore Km from the Sun...
We say relative to the Sun because the entire Universe is in motion and only the relative speeds of such an interstellar object can be measured.....
Our earth revolves around the Sun and so does the entire solar system.....in turn the Solar system revolves around the centre of our Galaxy the Milky Way at a speed of 230 Km/Sec....
The Milky Way Galaxy in turn is in turn moving at a speed of about 580 Km/Sec.....also it is continuously expanding....
So in the Universe everything is in relative motion and the speed of any object can be measured only by reference to a particular point....we take that relative point as the Sun because that is valid for us to perceive....
No comments:
Post a Comment