On October 19 a telescope in Hawaii spotted an asteroid in the sky, but it was nothing like humankind had ever seen – and it was traveling at 95,000 km/h.
The image below is merely an artist’s impression of the interstellar asteroid based on its description:
It turns out the visitor was an “alien” asteroid from a distant place outside our Solar System. About 44 meters long and ten times as long as it is wide, the interstellar asteroid – the first ever spotted – was named `Oumuamua, or to give it its official name: 1I/2017 U1.
“This unusually large variation in brightness means that the object is highly elongated: about ten times as long as it is wide, with a complex, convoluted shape. We also found that it has a dark red colour, similar to objects in the outer Solar System, and confirmed that it is completely inert, without the faintest hint of dust around it.”
Astronomers are calling it a chance encounter with our Solar System because it doesn’t look like the asteroid was attached to any star system.
Surprisingly, we get a similar visitor almost every year, but they’re very hard to spot because they’re usually very faint. This is the first time ever in human history that one has been spotted and detailed to this extent.
For more details please visit the website of the European Southern Observatory.
