WASHINGTON ¨C A newly discovered comet hurtling toward the orbit of Mars has scientists scurrying to confirm whether it came from outside the solar system, a likely prospect that would make it the second such interstellar object observed in our planetary neighborhood.
The trajectory of the comet, first detected by Crimean astronomer Gennady Borisov, follows a highly curved path barreling in the sun¡¯s direction at unusually high speeds, evidence that it originated beyond the solar system.
¡°On our team we¡¯ve been scrambling here at the University of Hawaii to get observations to make position measurements,¡± said Karen Meech, an astronomer at the university whose team concluded that the object¡¯s size and tail of gas classify it as a comet.
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