Sunday, May 17, 2020

Oumuamua

From Earth Sky:
An astronomer using a telescope in Hawaii spotted the first known interstellar object in 2017. That was after astronomers had estimated that several such objects – natural objects not born in our solar system or bound to our sun – should pass inside Earth’s orbit each year. The IAU designated it as 1I/’Oumuamua, the 1I for first interstellar and ‘Oumuamua, which is Hawaiian for a messenger from afar arriving first. Astronomers on all parts of Earth had only a few months to study this object; when first spotted, it had already passed closest to our sun and was heading out of our solar system again. They found the object to be dry (not icy like a comet) and peculiarly elongated. How was it formed, and where did it come from? Now computer simulations appear to confirm what many had suggested: that ‘Oumuamua came to us after a close encounter with its parent star and that it might, indeed, be a fragment of a shattered alien world. (Read more.)
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