The first interstellar comet to be tracked by astronomers as it hurtles through the solar system is unremarkable in every way apart from where it comes from, researchers have said. Scientists reached the conclusion after observing 2I/Borisov with two of the most powerful telescopes on Earth. They decided that it looked like any other comet except that it came from beyond the solar system and would soon leave for good.

The unusual body was spotted in August by a Crimean amateur astronomer, Gennady Borisov. It was swiftly identified as an outcast from another star system and may have been wandering the Milky Way for millions if not billions of years.

“This is the first comet known to science that arrived from outside the solar system, and it is completely similar to those we see inside the solar system,” said Michal Drahus, an astronomer at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

The team, led by Piotr Guzik, gathered images of the comet after receiving an alert from a computer system that detects cosmic interlopers. Unlike comets and asteroids that formed in the solar system, the arrivals are on trajectories that do not swing around the sun. (The Guardian)…[+]