ʻOumuamua was the first known interstellar visitor to pass through the Solar System. ‘Oumuamua, the quarter-mile-long object passed beyond Pluto’s orbit and is now on its way out of the outer Solar System.
An artist's depiction of the first identified interstellar
object, 'Oumuamua. (Image credit: M. Kornmesser/ESO) |
Researchers at Harvard’s Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
made waves in the mainstream media after publishing a paper claiming that
‘Oumuamua may have had an “artificial origin” — presenting speculation that the
object could have been sent “intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien
civilization.”
This theory is based on the object’s “excess acceleration,”
or its unexpected boost in speed separate from the Sun’s gravitational
influence. This still stumps researchers today.
We haven’t learned much about the interstellar object since
its discovery in 2017. One thing is for certain, though; it’s traveling fast,
blistering fast.
In fact, when ‘Oumuamua was closest to Earth, it was
tumbling through the inner Solar System at 196,000 miles per hour (87.3
kilometers per second), according to NASA. That is over 3 times faster than the
average speed of a main-belt asteroid and 109 times fast than the average speed
of a bullet, however, only .017 percent the speed of light. In case you were
wondering.
Despite this, almost 5 years later, ‘Oumuamua is just now
leaving the outer Solar System. It’s currently cruising just pasted Pluto,
covering a distance of over 2,832,000 miles (4,557,662 km) every 24 hours. It
won’t completely be out in interstellar space for another 2 years.
‘Oumuamua zooming through the inner Solar System in 2017.
Credit: NASA |
The quick slingshot from ‘Oumuamua around the Sun in 2017
made observing and classifying the object difficult.
To this day, we’ve yet to classify ‘Oumuamua officially.
This is in part because we honestly have no idea. At first, we thought it was
an asteroid—a large chunk of rock from a distant star system. Then we thought
it was a comet—a cosmic iceberg flung loose from somewhere in the great
unknown. Now scientists and researchers are stumped. Only left to speculate,
with little data, what the cosmic visitor was as it gets further and further
from view.
0 Comments