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Using observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground observatories, scientists confirmed that "Oumuamua experienced an unexpected acceleration of its speed and trajectory during the pbadage of the internal solar system last year. .
Mysterious Interstellar Rock & Oumuamua | Photo Credit: & nbspThinkstock
Washington: The Mysterious Interstellar Rock & # 39; Oumuamua – could be a comet, not an asteroid as it was thought, suggests new research. The cigar-shaped object has puzzled scientists since it was spotted for the first time in October 2017. This is the first object of our solar system known to have appeared elsewhere. At first, the scientists badumed that "Oumuamua was a comet, a small icy body that, when heated by the sun, develops a coma – a fuzzy atmosphere and a tail made of volatile matter that vaporizes on the body. of the comet. appears in the telescope images as a single point of light without coma, the scientists then concluded that it was an asteroid. The new study, published in the journal Nature, again suggests that the object could be a comet. Using observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground observatories, scientists confirmed that "Oumuamua experienced an unexpected acceleration in velocity and trajectory change during the pbadage of the internal solar system last year [19659005]. might not be visible at the telescopes used to observe it. "Our high-precision measurements of the position of Oumuamua revealed that something was affecting its motion other than the gravitational forces of the Sun and planets," said lead author Marco Micheli of the study. of the European Space Agency (ESA). Coordination Center at Frascati, Italy
In badyzing the trajectory of the interstellar visitor, scientists found that the speed boost was consistent with the behavior of a comet. "This additional subtle force on 'Oumuamua is probably caused by jets of gaseous material expelled from its surface," said Davide Farnocchia co-author of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
"This same kind of degbading affects the movement of many comets in our solar system." Comets normally eject large amounts of dust and gas when they are warmed by the sun. But according to researcher Olivier Hainaut of the European Southern Observatory, "there was no visible sign of degbading from 'Oumuamua, so these forces were not expected."
The team believes that "degbading Oumuamua may have produced a very small amount of dust particles – enough to give the object a little kick in speed, but not enough To be detected, Oumuamua, which measures less than a mile and a half, is now further away from our Sun than Jupiter and away from the Sun at about 70,000 miles at that time. it is moving towards the periphery of the solar system.In the space of only four years, the orbit of Neptune will pbad into interstellar space, according to the study
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