Orbital Path of First Confirmed Interstellar Comet
This illustration shows the path of comet 2I/Borisov through our solar system. This visitor came from interstellar space along a hyperbolic trajectory. It is only the second known intruder to zoom through our solar system. (The interstellar object 'Oumuamua was detected in 2017.) As the graphic shows, the comet's straight path across interstellar space is slightly deflected by the gravitational pull of our Sun. The comet is traveling so fast, at 110,000 miles per hour, it will eventually leave the solar system. The panel on the right shows the comet's position relative to Earth when the Hubble Space Telescope observed it on October 12, 2019, when the comet was 260 million miles from Earth. The background star field in the left panel is the constellation Eridanus. The background field in the right panel is the constellation Sagittarius.
