PARABNORMAL NEWS — The debate continues over Oumuamua, the 1,300′ long body from space that entered the solar system in 2017, the first ever to do so.
Chemist Jennifer Bergner from the University of California, Berkeley and Astronomer Darryl Seligman of Cornell University believe they have the explanation. Theorized to be everything from an asteroid to alien probe, they landed on a comet as the most likely explanation. However, not an ordinary one.
“In every way we expected these interstellar comets to behave, Oumuamua just acted exactly the opposite. So, it was a complete mystery from the very beginning,” Seligman said.
According to modeling, the researchers say that Oumuamua could have been a regular water-rich comet around a nearby star before it was ejected and high-energy cosmic rays turned a portion of its water ice into hydrogen, trapping it as it traveled through interstellar space. The heat of the sun would have released the hydrogen, giving the object speed.
It was discovered in October of 2017 by the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS1 telescope.
Source: First known interstellar interloper resembles ‘dark comet’
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