A visualization posted by scientists of Oumuamua’s body
outer space
The meteorite detected by a telescope in Hawaii was moving so fast that it might only have come from another star system, a first of its kind.
The passage of a mysterious space object in our solar system in 2017 worried astrophysicists, and one of them went so far as to attribute it to aliens, but a recent study provided an explanation that refutes this theory regarding the strange visitor.
The meteor, which was spotted by a telescope in Hawaii, and named “Oumuamua” (“scout” in Hawaiian), was moving at such a high speed that it might only come from another star system, in a first of its kind.
This discovery sparked unrest among astronomers who had long been searching for comet-like objects entering our solar system from the vastness of space.
However, “Oumuamua” is not like the usual comets, as it did not have that distinctive envelope that usually consists of a huge halo of gas and dust when approaching the sun.
The space visitor, which was nearly 100 meters wide, was characterized by its brightness and the great change in brightness, giving the impression that it was a metal object turning on itself.
But what was even more surprising is that following it orbited the sun, the movement of “Oumuamua” accelerated and deviated from its path, driven by a mysterious force that expelled it from the solar system.
Scientists were stunned, as they found themselves over four months in front of incomplete and apparently contradictory data that they tried to analyze, which led to a whole series of theories.
Jennifer Bergner, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley, who participated in the study, the results of which were published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, told AFP that some of the hypotheses put forward in this regard “exceeded imagination.”
A visualization posted by scientists of Oumuamua’s body
trapped hydrogen
According to Bergner, whatever the origin of ‘Oumuamua, it is a comet-like body rich in water. During its journey through interstellar space, this space object was exposed to cosmic rays that ejected water with the release of hydrogen, which in turn became trapped in the core of this object.
As the space object approached the sun, the heat in turn released the trapped hydrogen, which acted as a “thrust” that sent the object on an unexpected path.
“Trapped hydrogen is simply the most general explanation,” Daryl Seligman of Cornell University, a co-author of the study, said in a statement.
For his part, Marco Micheli, an astronomer at the European Space Agency, commented that this work “undoubtedly provides the first explanation, simple and realistic, for the peculiarities of this object.”
But these conclusions were not supported by everyone, starting with Avi Loeb, former director of the astronomy department at Harvard University. This eminent scientist said that the most reliable scenario is that Oumuamua was an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
This controversial hypothesis was defended by him in 2021 in a book titled “The First Sign of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life”.
A visualization posted by scientists of Oumuamua’s body
In response to a question by “Agence France Presse” regarding the new study in the journal “Nature”, the astrophysicist explained that saying that the comet has no tail “is like saying that the elephant is a zebra without stripes.” He also said that the comet “2I / Borisov”, the second visitor from outside the solar system that was observed in 2019, had what looked like long hairy lumps of dust.
Commenting on this, Jennifer Bergner said that if ‘Oumuamua is tailless, it is likely because it is much smaller than all the comets observed so far, including TUE/Borisov.
The situation may change soon. Observations from the Vera-C.-Rubin telescope in Chile, which will begin in 2025, are expected to discover many new comets inside and outside the solar system. The astrophysicist added that if smaller comets showed signs of releasing trapped hydrogen, and did not have a tail, like Oumuamua, that would confirm the theory.
As for the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life, “everything depends on the level of proof required” to confirm it, according to the researcher.
“We’ll never know what ‘Oumuamua is – we missed our chance. But for now, I think we have a convincing explanation for it that isn’t related to extraterrestrial objects,” Bergner concluded.
