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An artist representation of Oumuamua, the first interstellar object detected.
Credit: Mr Kornmesser / ESO
Since astronomers spotted Oumuamua, the first object of our solar system, he asked more questions than answers: – What is it? Where does it come from? Why is it so weird?
But a team of scientists announced that they had made major progress on this second issue, limiting the origins of the object to just four stars.
The research is based on data collected in June that suggested that "Oumuamua was not content to cross space, willy-nilly. Instead, it seemed that when the object was near the sun, it took a little extra speed, as if, like a comet, it was carrying something like ice that could turn into steam. 39 water and propel the object a little faster than usual.
Given this fact, the path of entry of Oumuamua into our solar system has been a little accentuated. (Scientists only spotted the object coming out of the solar system, then had to trace its path to track its origin.)
Then, the scientists consulted a huge batch of data produced by the Gaia mission of the European Space Agency to precisely locate the stars. This atlas is important, not only to allow scientists to identify potential solar source systems, but also to calculate how close stars and gravity pulled the object out of its path.
Combining these two pieces of information, the team identified four possible stars that could have given birth to "Oumuamua": the red dwarf HIP 3757, the solar star HD 292249 and two other stars without nicknames still manageable.
Astronomers believe that "Oumuamua (the name means" far-flung first-coming messenger "in Hawaiian) must come from a solar system with at least one large gas giant planet for it to be expelled and thrown across the planet. universe. For the moment, the four candidate stars are without a planet – but that could always change.
The new research is described in an article published on September 24th on the arXiv.org preprint site and has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her @meghanbartels. follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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