Astronomers from the University of Hawaii, in the United States, detected a strange object measuring 400 meters long, traveling through the Solar System at a speed of 87.3 kilometers per second, in October 2017.
The researchers were intrigued by the origin of the phenomenon – which was classified as a comet, an asteroid and even a part of an alien spacecraft – and named it Oumuamua. In Hawaiian, “oumuamua” means “messenger from far away who arrives first”.
Oumuamua became known as the first known object to come from another star to the Solar System.
Observations suggest that it roamed the Milky Way, independent of any star system, for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system.
Its proportions are greater than those of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date, according to NASA, the American space agency.
When the object was detected by the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii, it was initially classified as an asteroid until further measurements found that it was accelerating slightly, a sign that it behaves more like a comet – although it was accelerating like a comet. comet, it didn’t have the shine of one or dust. It didn’t even have a tail, a feature that all comets have.
The most plausible answer, which seems to address all these doubts, is the hypothesis that Oumuamua is probably an icy planetary building block, broadly similar to comets, driven by minuscule amounts of hydrogen gas gushing from an icy core, according to a research published in the journal Nature in March this year.
This hydrogen gas released by heating amorphous water ice likely drove Oumuamua’s non-gravitational acceleration, or acceleration beyond the influence of the Sun.
This hypothesis was also consistent with the lack of dust: Oumuamua would not be sublimating the dusty surface ice like comets with reflective tails, just releasing trapped interior gas.
Extraterrestrial object?
Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard University and chairman of the advisory committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Loeb project, however, refutes this hypothesis.
“The authors of the new paper claim it was a water ice comet, although we did not see the comet’s tail,” Loeb told the American newspaper The New York Times after the study is published. He added: “That’s like saying an elephant is a zebra without stripes.”
For him, Oumuamua may be linked to extraterrestrial technology. His theory is exposed in the book Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (“Extraterrestrial: the first sign of intelligent life outside of Earth”, in free translation), which was a bestseller.
To reinforce his thesis, Loeb points to the unexplained properties of the first interstellar visitor: its extreme dimensions, its enormous luminosity and the impulse of the speed acceleration that caused it to disappear from our telescopes.
“The simplest explanation of these peculiarities is that the object was created by an intelligent civilization that is not from this Earth,” he stated in the book.
See also: Meteor lights up the sky of six Brazilian states
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
