An Unknown Object Just Whizzed Past Our Solar System
On October 19 2017, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy Rob Weryk noticed the unusual object working with information gathered from the college’s Pan-STARRS 1 telescope.
The observation was confirmed by various other reports from astronomers around the world that also tracked the object. Everyone involved knew they were witnessing something strange and unusual.
NASA scientist Davide Farnocchia at NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) says in a statement “his is the most extreme orbit I have ever seen, 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.”
For now this object is being referred to as A/2017 U1 and is about a quarter mile long. It entered our solar system speeding along at about 15 miles per second! It was first thought that it may be a comet, however it doesn’t have a comet’s unmistakable tail. NASA scientists confirm that the object passed closest to the sun on September 9th and flew withing the orbit of Mercury.
Loading ...The object was slung out of our solar system by the Sun’s gravitational pull rocketing the object towards the constellation of Pegasus (Was this the purpose all along? What was this thing?). On October 14th the object came the closest to Earth on it’s journey through our solar system, coming within 15 million miles of the planet. That’s roughly about half the distance to Mars.
Farnocchia says in an e-mail “A/2017 U1 is already faint and fading quickly. We can still use large telescopes to track its position for a month or maybe two, the object may already be too faint for physical characterization and measuring its size, mass or composition.”
So forget trying to figure this thing out. It’s outta here already. Maybe we’ll get a chance to get a quick glimpse as it passes Hubble but for the most part humans will file a question mark next to this one.
Researchers are poring over the information they do have and attempting to get a couple of last looks of the unknown object before it blurs from sight in the endless sea of space. The early evaluations are interesting. It’s not a comet, it appears to have a particularly rosy shading, like asteroids in the Kuiper Belt.
Spectrum of A/2017 U1 obtained on Wednesday night with the @INGLaPalma 4.2m WHT. Colour is red like Kuiper Belt Objects, featureless. pic.twitter.com/utB1sqdjlV
— Alan Fitzsimmons (@FitzsimmonsAlan) October 27, 2017
So, what’s the deal with this? What’s our final thought? No clue as usual. Could be just what it looks like, a rogue piece of space rock dancing in the vast ocean of space, being bullied by gravitational forces of stars like our sun and whizzing around indiscriminately. Or… could be a first attempt of another civilization to send a probe near us on their way to explore objects in the Pegasus constellation. Or… maybe it’s been knocked out of it’s “natural” orbit by a nefarious species of alien that is testing some kind of asteroid weapon system designed to knock asteroids out of their orbit to “weaponize them”. Or… or… ahhh, too much fun with this already 😉
You decide. That’s some orbit though huh?
