NASA confirms unidentified object passed Earth route. It came from outside the Solar System
- há 6 anos
Initially designated A / 2017 U1, the asteroid now dubbed "Oumuamua" ("distant messenger that first arrived" in Hawaiian) is different from all such objects that have already been seen in our cosmic neighborhood, with its shape resembling a cigar of about 400 meters long, 40 meters in diameter and a reddish color, indicate observations coordinated by NASA and whose results were published on Monday in advance online by the prestigious scientific journal Nature.
Oumuamua was first observed on Oct. 19 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, held by the University of Hawaii at Haleakala, in an unusual trajectory that soon raised suspicions about its interstellar origin. According to the reconstruction of its route made by astronomers, it approached the Solar System directly "above" the ecliptic, the plane in the space where the planets and the great majority of the asteroids orbits the Sun, from the direction of the star Vega, in the constellation of the Lira, at a relative speed of about 92 thousand kilometers per hour.
On September 2, the object would have crossed the plane of the ecliptic in a region within the orbit of Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, reaching its maximum approximation of our star one week later, on the 9th. Attracted by the Sun's gravity, the asteroid made a closed return curve, passing under Earth's orbit on October 14 at a distance of about 24 million kilometers, or about 60 times the distance from the Moon.
It now fires again about 20 degrees "above" the ecliptic, moving at a speed of nearly 140,000 miles per hour relative to the Sun in the direction of the Pegasus constellation. From here he moved to the orbit of Mars, where he passed on Nov. 1, and on Monday was about 200 million kilometers from us, due to pass through the orbit of Jupiter in May of next year and by Saturn in January 2019 on the way to its exit from the Solar System.
For decades we have theorized that such interstellar objects are out there, and now, for the first time, we have direct evidence that they exist, "says Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA's Division of Science Missions. - This historical discovery opens a new window for the study of stellar systems beyond ours.
Oumuamua was first observed on Oct. 19 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, held by the University of Hawaii at Haleakala, in an unusual trajectory that soon raised suspicions about its interstellar origin. According to the reconstruction of its route made by astronomers, it approached the Solar System directly "above" the ecliptic, the plane in the space where the planets and the great majority of the asteroids orbits the Sun, from the direction of the star Vega, in the constellation of the Lira, at a relative speed of about 92 thousand kilometers per hour.
On September 2, the object would have crossed the plane of the ecliptic in a region within the orbit of Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, reaching its maximum approximation of our star one week later, on the 9th. Attracted by the Sun's gravity, the asteroid made a closed return curve, passing under Earth's orbit on October 14 at a distance of about 24 million kilometers, or about 60 times the distance from the Moon.
It now fires again about 20 degrees "above" the ecliptic, moving at a speed of nearly 140,000 miles per hour relative to the Sun in the direction of the Pegasus constellation. From here he moved to the orbit of Mars, where he passed on Nov. 1, and on Monday was about 200 million kilometers from us, due to pass through the orbit of Jupiter in May of next year and by Saturn in January 2019 on the way to its exit from the Solar System.
For decades we have theorized that such interstellar objects are out there, and now, for the first time, we have direct evidence that they exist, "says Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA's Division of Science Missions. - This historical discovery opens a new window for the study of stellar systems beyond ours.