Special Report – Oumuamua revisited
In 2017 we had a messenger from afar called Oumuamua which means visitor from afar in Hawaiian. Oumuamua was tracked entering our Solar System in 2017 heading toward our Sun, then doing a U-turn around our Sun and existing at a right angle away from our Solar System - allegedly at speeds not recorded before.
There was much conjecture about this visitor with many scientific people saying, “it was a rock of sorts”, a rock with alien internal technology or just alien visiting and going about its normal day. No reports claimed where it came from and where it was heading. Speculation was rife among major institutions such as NASA and the ESA. This included astronomers and cosmologists trying to figure out Oumuamua’s intentions and objectives, if it had any.
Fig1.0 tracking Oumuamua in transit.
Oumuamua is up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-
elongated, perhaps ,10 times as long as it is wide. That aspect ratio is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date. While its elongated or long in shape, it is quite surprising, and unlike objects seen in our solar system ever in history.
After the initial reports published in late 1917, nothing was in conclusion and in general, a mystery to all studying it. The news went away and has become an anomaly since.
Viewing Oumuamua:
Combining the images from the FORS instrument on the ESO telescope using four different filters with those of other large telescopes around the world, a team of
astronomers led by Karen Meech of the Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii found that ‘Oumuamua varies in brightness by a factor of 10, as it spins on its axis every 7.3 hours.
No known asteroid or comet from our solar system varies so widely in brightness, with such a large ratio between length and width. The most elongated objects we have seen to date are no more than three times longer than they are wide.
Fig 2.0 trajectory of Oumuamua and its visit
The latest data reported:
Much was reported back in late 2017/18 but little since because the scientific information became somewhat scant. However, in the past 6 months Oumuamua has become the flavour of the month with more reports being published. Perhaps the PhD candidates have been late in their dissertation presentations.
Fig 3.0 Artist impression of Oumuamua:
So, what’s all the big fuss about now?
This interstellar interloper as I prefer to call it, is reported to be a rocky, cigar-shaped object with a somewhat reddish hue. This is not new information when one scans the reports current and past reports.
It is said that Oumuamua is a water-rich comet traveling through the interstellar medium, or the space between stars. Alternatively, other reports say, it is dense, composed of rock and possibly metals, has no water or ice, and that its surface was reddened due to the effects of irradiation from cosmic rays over hundreds of millions of years in transit.
While originally classified as a comet back in 2017, new observations revealed no signs of cometary activity after its slingshot past the Sun - on Sept 9, 2017 at a blistering speed of 196,000 Mph. The normal speed of a comet is around 2,000 Mph but some comets, with the assistance of the Suns sling shot push, can reach up to 100,000 Mph.
Summing up, for research time put in, there is nothing new since I reported on Oumuamua back in 2019. So why is there a resurgence in interest now, is NASA holding back on something we don’t know?
