xoxoxoBruce • Nov 20, 2017 11:11 pm
Oumuamua*, not to be confused with Mahamana, the first interstellar visitor to our solar system we’ve seen.
After all the junk we’ve sent hurtling into the void, remember paybacks are a bitch. I could be filled with little green men with
ray guns. Or insects, giant carnivorous insects. Or Nymphos… but probably not. :(
* "a messenger that reaches out from the distant past."
After all the junk we’ve sent hurtling into the void, remember paybacks are a bitch. I could be filled with little green men with
ray guns. Or insects, giant carnivorous insects. Or Nymphos… but probably not. :(
On October 19, the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii spotted something strange zooming through our solar system. It turned out to be a visitor from beyond our solar system, and it's unlike anything astronomers have seen before.
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They acted fast, and multiple telescopes focused on the object for three nights to determine what it was before it moved out of sight at 85,700 miles per hour.
-snip-
The long and rocky cigar-shaped object has a burnt dark-reddish hue due to millions of years of radiation from cosmic rays. This hue is similar to that of objects found in the Kuiper Belt, in the outer part of our solar system, but its orbit and shape firmly place it in the category of interstellar origin. It most likely has a high metal content and spins on its own axis every 7.3 hours.
But the shape, 10 times as long as it is wide, has never been seen before. This complex and convoluted shape means the object varies incredibly in brightness.
* "a messenger that reaches out from the distant past."