2I/Borisov - The Interstellar Comet
Hello! Let's start with a math lesson (yay). If you did high school mathematics, you probably have learnt of "conic sections" and its four types: circle, ellipse, parabola and hyperbola and how each of them are derived from a cone (Go here in case you want to check). Every conic section has a property known as eccentricity, which basically tells us how "non-circular" a conic section is. A circle has an eccentricity of 0, an ellipse is between 0 and 1, a parabola is 1, a hyperbola has greater than 1 and a straight line has an eccentricity of infinity. Now, you might ask "How is this related to an interstellar comet?". Don't worry, we'll get to it soon. If you have ever heard of the dwarf planet Sedna or have checked the orbits of comets, you can see how elongated some of the orbits are. Like how Sedna's orbit has an eccentricity of roughly 0.84 and Halley's Comet's orbit has an eccentricity of 0.97, which is very close to a "p...
