From what it seems to be, to the different theories and new theories about its origins,
and more!
Join me as we explore the Oumuamua origin story, and how our mysterious interstellar
visitor may have been born!
So I'm sure your first question is, "What is a Oumuamua?"
Well, it's technically the universes first interstellar object.
One that was found in 2017 by scientists.
What does "interstellar object" mean exactly?
That would be an object that is flying through space yet isn't tied to the gravity or pull
of a star or other object.
So basically, it's something that is hurtling through space on its own without anyone's
help.
Unlike things like comets and asteroids which are given direction and form via things like
collisions and planetary gravity.
This is why Oumuamua is so special in the eyes of scientists, because at points in their
research on it, they found that Oumuamua was actually going faster and faster as it traveled
through space...even though it wasn't passing through anything or by anything that would
allow it to do that.
Technically speaking, there are other objects in the universe that move around like Oumuamua,
but because of the oddity of the object, as well as the fact that it's over 3000 feet
in length, there are many people who feel that this isn't some kind of random space
object.
Instead...they think it's an alien craft!
No, really, people honestly felt that this was an alien craft of some kind, to the extent
that there was heavy research into thinking about what it would mean if it was an alien
craft.
But, then, a study that came out in 2019 all but proved that this was a comet, albeit an
irregular.
One, even going so far as to state how it gets extra propulsion via its movements and
gasses that are emitted.
“The [study’s] overall reasoning seems sounds, and the results are a really good
match to the observed characteristics of ‘Oumuamua,” Marco Micheli, a scientist at the European
Space Agency told Scientific American.
But others still aren’t convinced that Oumuamua is a comet.
“It does not look like at least 99.999 percent of the solar system’s comets,” Avi Loeb,
astrophysicist at Harvard University, also told Scientific American.
Loeb is also one of the scientists who thinks ‘Oumuamua might be an alien artifact.
This would hardly be the first time that people think that an object from space is an alien
craft or device of some kind.
But, it would be the first time that it happened in the modern era to such a degree.
Either way, people have been studying Oumuamua for a very long time, and through some studies,
a new theory has been born as to how this thing might have been born.
According to some, they feel it is probably a fragment of a larger body that was torn
apart by gravitational forces during a close flyby of its native star, a new study suggests.
If you're not sure what that means, think of it like a giant asteroid flew through space,
and then it got caught partially in the gravity of a star.
The gravity well pulled out chunks of rock from this asteroid, and boom, Oumuamua was
born.
Or at least, that's what the theory states.
This "tidal fragmentation scenario not only provides a way to form one single 'Oumuamua
but also accounts for the vast population of asteroid-like interstellar objects," lead
author Yun Zhang, of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,
said in a statement.
So, overall, does this theory work?
Technically, yes.
We know that asteroids or massive entities of rock, earth or stone in space are the cause
of many things like meteors and meteorites and even comets at times.
Them colliding with each other is a big reason why space is full of space junk, as well as
why planets like Mars have been pelted with collisions over the years.
So the notion that Oumuamua came from one of these massive rocks is not only logical,
it's plausible.
The hypothesis explains 'Oumuamua's weirdness as well, according to Zhang and study co-author
Douglas Lin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
That weirdness is extreme and multilayered.
For example, 'Oumuamua is highly elongated, like a big space cigar (and may be somewhat
flattened as well).
Astronomers had never before seen a cosmic object with that shape.
Granted, that honestly is because we've only seen a small fragment of comets, asteroids,
meteors and such in space.
So there's no way to know just how many shapes of them are out there.
But this one is definitely visual, and funny if you think about it.
I mean, why would space need a cigar?
In addition, 'Oumuamua displayed "non-gravitational acceleration" during its trek through our
neighborhood — motion that can't be attributed to tugs by the sun, Jupiter or other big bodies.
Such motion can be caused by cometary outgassing, which pushes an object this way and that like
thrusters on a spacecraft.
But 'Oumuamua displayed no signs of outgassing — no visible tail or coma — even though
most astronomers thought the interloper was likely to be a comet.
(Comets tend to reside far from their host stars and are therefore easier to boot into
interstellar space.)
And that's still not all the mysteries that surround our mysterious interstellar traveler.
But before we get into that, be sure to like or dislike the video, that way we can continue
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Getting back to Oumuamua, just detecting 'Oumuamua at all is odd, and quite informative.
Considering how vast space is, how long it takes to cross interstellar gulfs and how
half-hearted our hunt for such bodies has been thus far, stumbling onto even a single
'Oumuamua implies a truly huge population of similar objects.
"On average, each planetary system should eject in total about 100 trillion objects
like 'Oumuamua," Zhang said.
That's a large number, and a bold claim.
Especially since if there are 100 trillion objects like Oumuamua, why are we only finding
one so far?
Let alone one with such an elongated shape?
It boggles the mind in many ways.
This combination of characteristics has spurred some scientists — most prominently, Avi
Loeb, who chairs Harvard University's astronomy department — to propose that 'Oumuamua might
be an alien spacecraft.
The available data are consistent with a light-sailing probe, perhaps a defunct one, Loeb has said,
stressing that researchers should at least be open-minded about this possibility.
I'm sure for some of you this may sound very strange, that a man from Harvard, one of the
most respected institutions in the world, and one that is prided on it intelligence
would tell people to be "open minded" about the possibility of it being an alien ship.
And yet, that's technically part of the scientific method.
No, thinking something is alien in origin is NOT part of the scientific method, but
the researching and studying of it to see if it is or isn't that...is.
Think about it, as noted before, this interstellar object isn't like ANYTHING we've seen before
in the universe.
Its shape, its speed, its movements, they're very foreign.
While it's true that there COULD be a "cosmic" explanation via something like it being a
fragment of an asteroid that was propelled in some way that keeps its momentum going
and going and going...it's also reasonable to think that the reason it's going faster
or looks like this is because someone or something is guiding it.
This is a reason hypothesis, and not something to dismiss outright just because someone says,
"Aliens!"
Science has been proven wrong many times before, including the people of Earth thinking that
the planet and our sun were the "center of the universe" and condemning anyone who thought
otherwise.
Yes, there are plenty of alien stories that are false, but this man from Harvard isn't
saying that it "couldn't be anything but aliens", all he's saying is that we need to be smart
and rule out all possibilities while everything is still in the hypothetical stage.
The new study, however, posits a natural explanation.
Zhang and Lin used computer simulations to investigate how objects are affected by flybys
of their native stars.
This modeling work revealed that very close encounters can rip these bodies into elongated
fragments, which are then ejected into interstellar space.
Extreme heating during the flyby and the cooling that follows it causes these fragments to
develop a surface crust, which helps support and maintain their odd shape, the results
further indicate.
"Heat diffusion during the stellar tidal disruption process also consumes large amounts of volatiles,
which not only explains 'Oumuamua’s [reddish] surface colors and the absence of visible
coma but also elucidates the inferred dryness of the interstellar population," Zhang said.
("Volatiles" are elements and compounds that are easily lost to space, such as water.)
“Nevertheless, some high-sublimation-temperature volatiles buried under the surface, like water
ice, can remain in a condensed form," he added.
These hidden volatiles could be "activated" during encounters with other stars like our
sun, causing outgassing and non-gravitational acceleration, the researchers said.
The parent bodies of such interstellar objects are a diverse lot, suggests the new study.
The ejected fragments could be pieces of long-period comets, planetary building bodies or even
"super-Earth" planets that strayed too close to their stars.
(And those stars don't necessarily need to be alive; superdense stellar corpses known
as white dwarfs could do the required disruption as well.)
"These interstellar objects could provide critical clues about how planetary systems
form and evolve,” Zhang said.
'Oumuamua is not the only interstellar visitor we know about.
In August 2019, astronomers spotted a second interloper, known as Comet Borisov (and it
is quite clearly a comet).
And they should start seeing many more such objects soon, especially after the Vera C.
Rubin Observatory comes online in the mountains of Chile.
"'Oumuamua is just the tip of the iceberg," Lin said in the same statement.
So with a cigar-shaped rock and a comet that are boggling some people's minds, that's very
impressive.
"Why should we care about a comet?" you might be ask.
But th thing here isn't that it's a comet, it's that 2i/Borisov is a comet that comes
from outside our solar system and is now here.
That makes it an Interstellar Comet, which is actually rather rare in our part of the
galaxy.
In fact, it's only the second entity that has done that after Oumuamua.
On October 12th, 2019, the Hubble Space Telescope was able to get some photos of 2i/Borisov,
and wit it came confirmation as to what it was, and how it was different from Oumuamua.
"Whereas 'Oumuamua appeared to be a rock, Borisov is really active, more like a normal
comet.
It's a puzzle why these two are so different," said David Jewitt of the University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA), leader of the Hubble team who observed the comet.
Obviously, 2i/Borisov is special because it doesn't come from our system, but there's
more to it than that that scientists find interesting.
Mainly, this is an object that can help us understand what is going on out there in the
universe, and to that end, what's out there and how it relates to our own star system:
"Though another star system could be quite different from our own, the fact that the
comet's properties appear to be very similar to those of the solar system's building blocks
is very remarkable," said Amaya Moro-Martin of the Space Telescope Science Institute in
Baltimore.
The irony of this object is that while it's in our solar system right now, and is traveling
at an incredible 110,000 miles per hour, it won't stay in our solar system for too long
in galactic terms.
That is because the comet is flying on a hyperbolic path, which means it's going around the sun
and it's gravity in such a way that it's not even slowing down.
Which make it even more fascinating because most objects in our solar system get stuck
around the sun unless they have their own propulsion.
Anyway, by the middle of 2020, the comet will be zooming past Jupiter and then flying back
out into deep space never to be seen by us again.
So for people at NASA and other space agencies around the world, the race is quite literally
on to try and learn more about this comet, its composition, and what it is like in all
aspects before it is gone: "New comets are always unpredictable," said
Max Mutchler, another member of the observing team.
"They sometimes brighten suddenly or even begin to fragment as they are exposed to the
intense heat of the Sun for the first time.
Hubble is poised to monitor whatever happens next with its superior sensitivity and resolution."
The point here is that now we have TWO major objects that are in our space that can tell
us loads about what else is out there in the universe.
One is still very much a mystery via Oumuamua, and the other is a comet that can tell us
more about comets in other galaxies and such.
And, if the theories are true and there are more objects like these two, especially Oumuamua,
out there, this could lead to even more discoveries about the universe at large.
"As future interstellar objects are discovered in coming years, it will be very interesting
to see if any exhibit 'Oumuamua-like properties," U.S. Naval Academy astronomer Matthew Knight,
co-leader of the ‘Oumuamua International Space Science Institute team, said in the
same statement.
"If so, it may indicate that the processes described in this study are widespread," added
Knight, who was not involved in the new study.
We'll just have to look at the stars and wait for more to come.
Thanks for watching everyone!
What did you think of these new theories about Oumuamua?
Do you think that it is just a regular cosmic object?
Or is it truly something...more?
Let me know in the comments below, be sure to subscribe, and I'll see you next time on
the channel!