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Its pbadage through the Solar System was very brief, but its elongated form like that of a cigar and its strange characteristics continue to captivate science. With each little discovery, the asteroid Oumuamua becomes an object more and more rare. The latest discovery is that he had his own propulsion system.
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A recent study published in the journal Nature revealed that Oumuamua is a comet, not an asteroid. Both types of objects are leftovers in the formation of solar systems, but while asteroids are usually composed of metals and rocks, comets are a conglomerate of dust, ice, and rocks.
but as their orbits bring them closer to a star like our Sun, comets come to life. Solar radiation heats its surface by carrying them with a shiny tail of dust and gas.
Oumuamua was first detected in October 2017. The 798-meter long asteroid pbaded 33 million kilometers from the Earth and then circled Sun and was fired towards the confines of the solar system. The fact is that the combined data from Hubble and several ground telescopes from ESA and NASA indicate that he has done it at a much faster pace than expected.
This is not such a bestial acceleration that suggests an intervention of something artificial, but has been significant enough that Oumuamua even changes trajectory in relation to what astronomers were waiting for.
In the process of determining what this acceleration could have caused, astronomers have ruled out any miscalculation in the mbad of the asteroid and its interaction with solar gravity precluded the solar wind and even a possible collision with another object that we have not seen.
No, the reason for the most interesting asteroid accelerator 2017 is different and a little more exotic. It is the gasification of the material on its surface. The researchers found that evaporation of the ice on its surface releases enough gas for it to register a slight impulse in the opposite direction to the Sun (because it is caused precisely in the exposed part).
Astronomers exclude that this pulse is indicative of any type of propeller subject to the asteroid or hidden within. Its acceleration decreases as it moves away from the Sun and the speed at which it does so is perfectly consistent with surface gasification. It's just the strange natural propulsion system of one of the weirdest comets we've had the chance to encounter. [vía Nature]
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