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While we await the alien invasion that will enslave all human beings and suck Earth of all its resources, we actually received our first interstellar visitor that has ever been observed. And thankfully there was no enslavement or sucking of resources. The unidentified object is believed to be either an asteroid or a comet from another star. Since this is the first object from interstellar space to enter our solar system there are no official rules for naming it, so the scientific community settled on the catchy name of A/2017 U1. Looking at the GIF above, it looks like an A/2017 U1.
“We have been waiting for this day for decades,” said Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “It’s long been theorized that such objects exist — asteroids or comets moving around between the stars and occasionally passing through our solar system — but this is the first such detection,” Chodas added. “So far, everything indicates this is likely an interstellar object, but more data would help to confirm it.”
A/2017 U1 was first detected last week by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Haleakala, Hawaii. The object is believed to be less than 1,300 feet wide and hurtled through our solar system at mind-bending speeds of 97,200 mph or 15.8 miles per second. Scientists are not sure exactly what it is but are leaning towards it being an asteroid. Researchers first believed the object was a comet, but after more in-depth observations of the object they concluded that it lacked a coma, which is “the fuzzy cloud of gas and dust surrounding a comet’s core.” Scientists then declared it an asteroid. Scientists hope to utilize telescopes around the world to get a better idea of A/2017 U1’s shape, spin rate, color, and clues for what it might be made of.
A/2017 U1 made a flyby of the sun on Sept. 9 A/2017 U1 and then came within 15 million miles from Earth on Oct. 14, which is approximately 60 times the distance from us to the moon. A/2017 U1 boasts a never-before-seen hyperbolic orbit, meaning a “central body with more than enough speed to escape the central object’s gravitational pull. The name derives from the fact that according to Newtonian theory such an orbit has the shape of a hyperbola.” You’ll notice that it has an orbit that looks like nothing you’ve ever seen. “This is the most extreme orbit I have ever seen,” said Davide Farnocchia, a scientist at the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. “It is going extremely fast and on such a trajectory that we can say with confidence that this object is on its way out of the solar system and not coming back.” Goodbye A/2017 U1, we hardly knew ye.
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[Space]