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Scientists offer 'non-alien explanation' for Oumuamua
But researchers said Wednesday that they had come up with a simple and "compelling non-alien explanation" for the interstellar interloper's bizarre behaviour -- though not everyone was convinced.
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This handout photo released by the European Southern Observatory on November 20, 2017 shows an artist's impression of the first interstellar asteroid: Oumuamua. (European Southern Observatory/AFP/M. Kornmesser)
W
hen the first object ever known to have visited the Earth's Solar System from outer space zoomed past in 2017, it was so strange that at least one leading astronomer was convinced it was an alien vessel.
But researchers said Wednesday that they had come up with a simple and "compelling non-alien explanation" for the interstellar interloper's bizarre behaviour -- though not everyone was convinced.
The object christened 'Oumuamua -- "scout" in Hawaiian -- baffled scientists as soon as it was spotted by an observatory in Hawaii six years ago.
Astronomers had long been searching for comet-like objects entering the Solar System from the vastness of interstellar space, but had never before observed one.
But 'Oumuamua did not much resemble the comets that normally travel in from the edges of the Solar System. It lacked both a tail and a fuzzy halo, known as a coma, which are formed by dust and gas warming in the Sun's heat.
It was also a peculiar elongated shape, never before observed in comets or asteroids. Its diameter was roughly 100 metres -- about the size of a football pitch -- but by some estimates it was 10 times as long as it was wide, shaped either like a pancake or a cigar.
And by the way light glinted off the object, it appeared to be tumbling end over end.
