The Interstellar Visitor & # 39; Oumuamua & # 39; behaves like a comet: scientists

The Mysterious Interstellar Rock & # 39; Oumuamua & # 39; could be a comet, not an asteroid believed earlier, suggests new research. (Image Source: NASA)

The mysterious interstellar rock "Oumuamua" could actually be a comet, and not an asteroid as previously 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 that is known to be the only one in the world. he is from another place

. a comet, a small icy body that, when heated by the sun, develops a coma – a fuzzy atmosphere and a tail of volatile matter that vaporizes on the body of the comet. But because "Oumuamua 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 had an unexpected acceleration of speed and change of trajectory during the pbadage of the solar system internally the year. last. Scientists have realized that a coma and jets might not be visible at the telescopes used to observe it.

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"Our high-precision measurements of" The position of Oumuamua revealed that there was something that affected his movement other than the gravitational forces of the Sun and planets, "said the study's lead author, Marco Micheli, of the European Space Agency (ESA). the trajectory of the interstellar visitor, the scientists found that the speed boost was consistent with the behavior of a comet. "This extra subtle force on" Oumuamua "is probably caused by jets of gaseous matter expelled from its surface, "said Davide Farnocchia co-author of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

" This same kind of degbading affects the motion 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 of 'Oumuamua', so these forces were not expected". The team believes that "Oumuamua degbading may have produced a very small amount of dust particles – enough to give the object a little bit of speed, but not enough to be detected.

"Oumuamua", less than one kilometer long, is now further away from our Sun as Jupiter and away from the Sun at about 70,000 miles at the time while he's heading to the periphery of the system. In the space of just four years, Neptune 's orbit will pbad into interstellar space, according to the study.

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