'Oumuamua: 6th Anniversary of Discovery

On this day in 2017, an interstellar object, a comet, decided to come cruise its way through our Solar System. The object's name was 'Oumuamua.

Artist rendering. Identity unknown.

The name is Hawaiian, meaning "scout" or "first distant messenger". Appropriate as it was first spotted by Canadian physicist/astronomer Robert Weryk at the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii.

'Oumuamua is estimated to be about 300-3000ft long, and potentially 115-548 ft in width and thickness. Like the artist rendering shows, it's not shaped like we'd think a comet would be shaped, basically a ball. It's believed that it's shaped more like a tube, or like a peanut. One article described its appearance as "between a cigar and a pancake". I'm going with peanut.

It's considered a rather unusual comet, as it had a very strange orbit. Unlike other comets that passed by our Sun, it did not exhibit a tail. You see, in general, when a comet passes by our sun, the sun's heat causes the comet to emit dust and microparticles, as well as evaporates its gases. the pressure from the sun's radiation causes these emissions to form a tail. A comet's tail can be millions of miles long. They do things BIG in space.

However, 'Oumuamua never created a tail. It would also accelerate away from the Sun in a way that made astronomers scratch their head in confusion. 

However, that mystery may have been solved. You see, during 'Oumuamua's travels through space, this little comet (yeah, it's also small compared to many other comets) spent plenty of time getting nice and baked by cosmic radiation. Yeah, there's radiation out in space. I mean, it's how these guys got their powers.

Anyway, while the comet was getting baked like a potato...mmm, baked potato...

I'm getting off track. Hydrogen was formed from this baking process. And when this little comet passed by the Sun, it ended up getting released, causing the strange orbit and acceleration. So yeah, you could say 'Oumuamua's journey was a real...gas.

Yeah, I apologize. I hope you enjoyed this little look at this little visitor of our Solar System. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home, wash your hands often, wear a mask, and get your vaccine/booster! See you next time!