Comet 2I/ Borisov at Perihelion

Hubble revisited comet 2I/Borisov on Dec. 9, 2019, shortly after its closest approach to the Sun where it received maximum heating after spending most of its life in frigid interstellar space. The comet also reached a breathtaking maximum speed of about 100,000 miles per hour. Comet Borisov is 185 million miles from Earth in this photo, near the inner edge of the asteroid belt but below it. The nucleus, an agglomeration of ices and dust, is still too small to be resolved. The bright central portion is a coma made up of dust leaving the surface. The comet will make its closest approach to Earth in late December at a distance of 180 million miles.

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).