September 13, 2019

C/2019 Q4 seen by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (Image courtesy C/2019 Q4 seen by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope)

An object cataloged as C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) and identified as a comet discovered on August 30 by the amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov has a strongly hyperbolic trajectory that suggests its interstellar origin. This could be the first identified interstellar comet, with the advantage that it was discovered while it was still approaching the Sun so it will be possible to conduct more observations for months.