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‘Oumuamua

So… ‘Oumuamua Wasn’t Built By Aliens?

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'Oumuamua

Our solar system’s first known interstellar visitor may have a very violent origin story. The mysterious object ‘Oumuamua, which was spotted zooming through the inner solar system in October 2017, is probably a fragment of a larger body that was torn apart by gravitational forces during a close flyby of its native star, a new study suggests. This “tidal fragmentation scenario not only provides a way to form one single ‘Oumuamua but also accounts for the vast population of asteroid-like interstellar objects,” lead author Yun Zhang, of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a … Read more

SPACE: Are We All Aliens?

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Oumuamua

Life may have traveled to Earth from afar, aboard an interstellar visitor like the weird, cigar-shaped object ‘Oumuamua, researchers say. ‘Oumuamua, which zoomed through the inner solar system last fall, is the first confirmed interstellar object ever observed in our neck of the woods. But that doesn’t mean it was the first ever to get here — far from it, in fact. “We think that something like an ‘Oumuamua … there’s always one within about 1 AU of the sun at any given time,” planetary scientist Bill Bottke said last month during a panel discussion at the Breakthrough Discuss conference … Read more

SPACE: Our First Known Interstellar Visitor Had a Violent Past

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'Oumuamua

An interstellar object called ‘Oumuamua has confounded astronomers ever since it passed through our solar system in October of last year. Scientists initially thought that the object — the first-ever visitor from another solar system spotted by Earth-based telescopes — was a comet. Later, they considered it an asteroid and even later described it as a possibly comet-like icy body with a rocky crust. Now, scientists have found that in addition to its confusing appearance, ‘Oumuamua — an up to 1,300-foot-long (400 meters), cucumber-shaped object — likely has a rather dramatic history. When astronomers from Queen’s University Belfast in Northern … Read more