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The Highly Unusual Behavior and Chemical Composition of Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov

  • Authors: Allison N. Bair, David G. Schleicher, Theodore Kareta, Matthew M. Knight, Michael S. P. Kelley

Allison N. Bair et al 2026 The Planetary Science Journal 7 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 3.

Images acquired on 2019 October 4 (left) and 27 (right) with LDT. The top row show stacks of r and CN images, respectively. The bottom row shows the same images enhanced by subtraction of an azimuthal median profile. The enhanced CN images have been smoothed with a Gaussian profile to better reveal the faint underlying structure. A compass indicating north (N), east (E), the antisunward direction (−⊙), and the antivelocity vector (−v) are overlaid on the r panels, while a scale bar showing a distance at the comet of 20,000 km is given on the CN panels (1″ corresponds to 2134 km on October 4 and 1814 km on October 27). All four panels for a given night have the same orientation and physical scale at the comet. The October 4 image is a single frame and shows several artifacts that could not be removed without a median combination, include several bright pixels in the CN frame (yellow) and a bad column in all frames (black diagonal line). On October 4, a bright star is seen near the left edge of the r frames and as a diagonal (yellow) line in the upper right in CN. Two faint trailed stars are visible in the r images on October 27.

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