Mystery and facts revealed about Oumuamua | First interstellar object | Information about Oumuamua Asteroid

The Universe consists of billions of galaxies, stars, planets, asteroids and other celestial objects. Our own solar system consists of millions of asteroids and comets in which most of them are yet to be discovered. But in 2017, one strange asteroid visited our solar system and travelled billions of kilometres to reach us.

On 19 October 2017, astronomer Robert Weryk discovered an asteroid moving towards the Sun using Pan-STARRS1 telescope, Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii. At first, he thought that it was a comet and on 6 November 2017, a team of astronomers concluded that it was an asteroid. They named it as “Oumuamua”, designated as “1I/2017 U1”. Oumuamua means "a messenger from a far arriving first" in Hawaii. Astronomers detected Oumuamua on 19 October 2017, but no one traced Oumuamua when it entered into solar system.

Oumuamua_Into_the_dark_space
Image credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1737a/

As of we know, from past 2000 years not even a single celestial object entered into solar system. Oumuamua is the first interstellar object ever noticed by us. Scientists and astronomers made estimations on Oumuamua, said "Oumuamua entered into our solar system on 9 September 2017 and we didn't detected it, until it reached near to the Sun on 19 October, 2017 ".

Oumuamua is travelling in a hyperbolic path, and when Robert Weryk discovered Oumuamua, it is at a distance of about 33 million kilometres away from us, which is 85 times the distance between the Earth and moon.

Image_of_Oumuamua_Into_the_dark_space
Image credit: ESO/K. Meech et al.
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1737b/

Oumuamua has size in between 100 to 1000 meters and from estimations, it is about 400 meters in size. Commonly, asteroids and comets in our solar system contains water or ice above their surface, but Oumuamua doesn't have any sort of these signs. Strangely, Oumuamua is made up of different kind of metal, has different shape ( in 1:10 ratio) and dark reddish in colour, which is so different than the asteroids in our solar system. So, some scientists and astronomers called Oumuamua as ‘Alien spacecraft’, because of its strange properties.

At first we discovered Oumuamua, it is travelling at a blistering speed of 87 kilometres/sec and completing its rotation in 7.2 hours. When we discovered it, it is travelling far away from the Sun into the interstellar space. But until December 2017, we observed it and later it disappeared due to its small size, so we can't detect it. Finally, Scientists and astronomers concluded that it will flung away into interstellar space in between first few months of 2018.

Oumuamua_orbit_Into_the_dark_space
Image credit: Credit: ESO/K. Meech et al.
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1737c/

Some facts to know about Oumuamua are,

We don't know exactly where it come from but as we consider it's direction, it came from the star Vega in the constellation of Lyra. Star Vega is 25 light years away from us, meaning Oumuamua travelled thousands of years in interstellar space to reach us.

It travelled closer to the Sun at about 20 million kilometres, which is nearer than Mercury's orbit and amazingly, it escaped from Sun's gravity pull. Oumuamua is small in size, when compared to other asteroids, making hard to detect. If it is trapped by the Sun's gravity pull, then the speed of Oumuamua will decrease to 20 kilometres/sec and if it is the case, then it will reach the interstellar space in 2020.

Astronomers said, there is no harm to Earth from Oumuamua asteroid and if it hit Earth, then the world would have already ended in 2017. What do you think?

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