Mysterious interstellar object is spinning out of control
"It has sparked something of a revolution for astronomy.
It’s the fist known object to enter our Solar System from deep space.
Though the truth is there are more than likely thousands of similar interstellar asteroids captured by the gravitational pull of our Sun. It’s just that we didn’t see them arrive.
It’s estimated at least one turns up every year.
Potentially, they offer a unique sample of the mechanics of star and planetary formation across our galaxy.
But Astronomers are as yet uncertain as to what ‘Oumuamua actually is.
It looks like a rocky asteroid. It certainly didn’t flare up like a comet does when it passed very close by the Sun (37 million kilometres) last year.
But it also
appears to be thickly coated by organic-carbon substances — probably generated by its long term exposure to raw interstellar radiation in the void between the stars. This could be insulating an icy core.
It’s also being seen as
potential evidence for the theory of lithopanspermia — the transfer of microbial life between planets and stars through comets and asteroids. Such an object — crashing into our surface as a meteor — could have seeded the building blocks for life on Earth.
We haven’t sampled such an interstellar visitor, yet.
So it remains just an enticing idea.
‘Oumuamua itself isn’t going to hang around long. At its current speed, it will pass Jupiter in May and Saturn early next year.
It won’t be long until it has left our Solar System behind.
Meanwhile, astronomers are racing to find the next interstellar visitor. Or identify ones that have been snared by the Sun’s gravitational pull.
This involves backtracking orbits. Watching the skies in generally ignored directions. Analyzing the spectroscopy of known objects for variations in oxygen isotope ratios that indicate they are not made of the same stuff as the rest of our Solar System."
Clearly this is an ancient spaceship that's dead and uncontrollably locked in a death spiral through space. I'm sure all the "satellite launches" world wide the last month, many of them unannounced, had nothing to do with secret space probes with AI robots to identify it, and perhaps, attempt to dock with it before it gets out of range.
