A new study suggests that 'Oumuamua, the mysterious visitor that whizzed through our solar system in 2017, may have been merely a small comet from another star
Scientists have a new idea to explain the strange behavior of ’Oumuamua, our solar system’s first known interstellar visitor.
“This scenario just seemed like it would allow us to start with something that looked more normal, like a solar system comet, and still have the sort of end phenomenon of explaining this nongravitational acceleration,” says Jennifer Bergner, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, and lead author of the new research.
And indeed, our solar system’s comets are rich in water ice and are regularly kicked around by larger objects. And when bathed in sunlight, they display plenty of nongravitational acceleration, notes Jane Luu, an astronomer at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new research. “Comets do it all the time,” Luu says of this acceleration. “They’re like rockets, right? They outgas, and when they spit something out, Newton’s law says you go the other way.
“We have never, ever seen ice outgassing without dust. Never,” Luu says. “Dust and ice usually go together.”
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