Tag : Interstellar

New Delhi (The Hawk): State of the art visually realistic cosmic dust model created by scientists to replicate the unusual polarisation properties of the first observed interstellar comet (not gravitationally bound to a star), 2I/Borisov, can reproduce experimental as well as observational data of light scattered by dust. The particles would be useful to determine the physical properties of dust present in different regions of space. Generally, Solar System comets are categorised in two polarimetric classes: low and high polarisation comets depending on the different dust-to-gas ratio observed in the coma. Apart from these two classes, there exists a third class of comets, having polarisation higher than that of high polarisation comets, which was observed only in case of one Solar System comet, C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp). Such steep polarimetric slope is believed to occur due to the presence of small pristine cosmic dust. Polarimetric studies of 2I/Borisov, the first interstellar comet to be observed and studied by mankind, exhibited an unusually steeper slope which was observed only in case of one Solar System comet, C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp). To explain the polarimetric observations of comets, it is important to develop realistic computer-modeled dust structures and computationally simulate the scattering of light by such modelled structures. Recently, scientists from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, for the first time developed a visually realistic cosmic dust model using a set of numerical algorithms/software called REST (Rough Ellipsoid Structure Tools). Dr. Prithish Halder, a postdoctoral fellow from IIA, Bangalore, work ...