uranologist have suggested that the interstellar object ‘ Oumuamua , the first ever observed in our Solar System , might be the sherd of a destroyed planet .
That ’s consort to a newspaper onarXiv , pick up byNew Scientist . Matija Cuk from the SETI Institute in California suggests that the unusual size of it and shape of the target may be a result of a violent pedigree .
“ ‘ Oumuamua ’s physical characteristics were unexpected , starting with a complete lack of cometic activity , ” Cuk save in the paper . “ The most puzzling feature of speech of ‘ Oumuamua is its very elongate shape . ”
That configuration is alike to a cigar , with the target ( imagine to be an asteroid ) being 10 fourth dimension farsighted than it is wide . It ’s 400 meters ( 1,300 feet ) long , and spins on its axis once every 7.3 hours . We ’ve never seen an physical object like this in our Solar System . It wasfirst spottedin October 2017 , and is now making its way away from our Sun , never to retort .
To explain its unusual parentage , Cuk says it could have been bear from a satellite 10 time the size of Earth receive too airless to its star , probably a red dwarf . As a result , it would have been ripped apart and the debris could have been throw out to a potential companion star before heading our way ( Cuk hint its origin organisation is a binary star organisation ) .
This helps to explain one mystifier . Namely , if this was born out of a regular collision between two asteroids in a youthful planetary system , you would not await its elongated shape to have hold out . This explanation provides a potential solution .
“ The present possibility is based on the assumption that ‘ Oumuamua is not a fluke but a typical representative of interstellar asteroids , ” Cuk writes .
He adds that if future discoveries are similar “ massive fragments ” , then his idea “ may warrant a closer look , with in - depth modeling of binary system kinetics and tidal perturbation being need before we can determine if this surmise is well-founded . ”
‘ Oumuamua is the theme of innumerable pieces of research and papers at the moment , with plenty of people having a twinge at its origin and characteristic . We ’ve pick up everything from it being analien spaceshipto achunk of dark matterto just a patently old asteroid .
Whether it was mould in a spectacular collision in another planetary system , well , we ’ll have to await and see . Astronomers are hoping to come up more interstellar objective like this in the future , and if they have a similar coming into court then we might be able to paint a better picture .
( H / T : New Scientist )
