Astronomers Classify Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua As A Comet

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The reddish cigar-shaped object called 'Oumuamua spotted last year tumbling through space is a comet, scientists said on Wednesday, solving the mystery over how to classify the first interstellar object found passing through our solar system.

Astronomers said they closely examined the trajectory of 'Oumuamua, which measures a half-mile long, as it speeds up our cosmic neighborhood after being evoked somehow from a distant star system.

from a surface which would be exposed purely by the Sun's gravitational pulling of what apparently is a very small emission of gas from its surface, indicative of a comet.

'Oumuamua (pronounced oh-MOO-uh-MOO-uh) originally was pegged as a comet, but it lacked the tail of gas and dust characteristic of many comets, and some scientists argued that it was perhaps a dry asteroid.

"Marco Micheli of the European Space Agency's SSA-NEO Coordination Center in Italy, who led the study, published in the journal Nature.

" Our analysis shows that it is necessary to generate this force we would have been so small to be invisible in our observations, "he said in an email.

This "extra strength" acting on The object's trajectory amounts to only about 0.1 percent of the Sun's gravitational attraction.

'Oumuamua was first detected last October by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS1 telescope. Its name refers to the native Hawaiian language to a large distance.

It has been roughly 196,000 miles per hour and is heading out of the solar system in the direction of the constellation Pegasus. 'Oumuamua as of last month was roughly the same distance from the Sun as Jupiter.

"The discovery of' Oumuamua is an absolute "Micheli said, first in the field, and it provided for our first opportunity to study an object from another star and planetary system. "The existence of these objects is expected, but they are expected, and they are able to study, they are unique in their ability to function, and they form."