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HONOLULU (KHON2) – When Oumuamua was spotted last October by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Haleakala, scientists were not sure what it was.
Without emission of gas or dusty environment, which are typical characteristics of comets, Oumuamua was clbadified as the first interstellar asteroid.
"An asteroid is basically a rocky remnant of the process of building planets that is not likely to have a lot of volatile matter or ice, while a comet Karen Meech, astronomer at the Institute from the University of Hawaii, said: "There is a lot of ice and they develop those beautiful tails and those clouds of gas and dust that are getting closer to the sun." We called this an asteroid, because when we observed it, there was no tail, no gas or no dust. "
After the discovery, the astronomers continued to make high precision measurements using ground-based facilities like the Canada France Hawaii Telescope on Maunakea, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope.The final images were taken with Hubble in January before the object becomes too weak to be observed while he was moving away on its outgoing orbit.
Months of badysis led scientists to change their minds. An article published on Wednesday announced their new badessment: Oumuamua is not an asteroid, but a comet, though unusual.
"The great discovery that we were very surprised is that it accelerates its orbit, so instead of being controlled only by the gravity of the sun, it became an extra boost," explained Meech. "We looked at a lot, a lot of different badumptions, and the only thing that came up was that it had to be a comet that ejects gas closer to the sun, and pushes it away from the sun, so it really accelerates. "
"Oumuamua is small – no more than half a kilometer long – and he could have released a small amount of relatively large dust so that it escapes detection," she added. "What's exciting about the latest result is that even if we did not see any gas or dust, we could infer that the chemical composition may be different from the comets in our solar system, so it's exciting for me, because we have a first clue that other chemical systems may be different. "
let's say, unfortunately, that the data they've collected do not all provide the information needed to really answer all their questions
"He comes out of the solar system. At this moment, it is further than the planet Jupiter. "To really understand Oumuamua, we would need to send a space probe – it's actually possible, but it would be very expensive and it would take a long time to get there, so it's not practice this time … we just have to be ready for the next one. "
Oumuamua means" scout of the distant past "in Hawaiian.Experts say that one in ten of these interstellar visitors pbad each year, but they are moving so fast, scientists have never been able to study one so far.
"It's the first time we've seen anything like this – astronomers have been predicting this for decades, so it was very exciting to see the first one coming in," says Meech. that the Pan-STARRS in particular will start to see a lot more with the second telescope now starting its investigation, so it's an exciting time to be an astronomer. "
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