Comet 2I/ Borisov Near Perihelion

This image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 16, 2019 captures comet 2I/Borisov streaking though our solar system and on its way back to interstellar space. It is only the second interstellar object known to have passed through the solar system.

Comet 2I/Borisov appears in front of a distant background spiral galaxy (2MASX J10500165-0152029). The galaxy's bright central core is smeared in the image because Hubble was tracking the comet. Comet Borisov was approximately 203 million miles from Earth in this exposure. Its tail of ejected dust streaks off to the upper right. The comet has been artificially colored blue to discriminate fine detail in the halo of dust, or coma, surrounding the central nucleus. It also helps to visually separate the comet from the background galaxy.

About the colours

These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. The color results from assigning the color blue to a monochromatic (grayscale) image.

About the data

The HST observations include those from programs 16009 (D. Jewitt).