383E-419-ET's Cigar

About this episode

This episode discusses the mysterious interstellar object Oumuamua and its unusual characteristics as it travels through space.

In 2012 as it crossed the orbit of Neptune heading towards the Sun a small space rock was 250 times fainter than can be detected by the Hubble Space Telescope. Five years later, after it had rounded the Sun, it became visible in asteroid hunter's telescopes for about 16 days, as it streaked across our planet's orbit at 37 miles per second, as it continued to move away from the Sun. During that brief period of time it was discovered by the PanSTARRS group in Hawaii, tracked by telescopes around the world, and given the name Oumuamua (“Oh-moo-ah-moo-ah”). Turns out that previous to the discovery observations, sightings too sparse to report, were obtained by my team using the Catalina Sky Survey's Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona. In 2024 this unusual space rock will cross Pluto's average distance from the Sun traveling on a path which will take it into deep interstellar space. Since we don't know how Oumuamua could obtained it's current trajectory from processes in our solar system, it is safe to presume that it originated in truly deep space. The mystery of Oumuamua deepened when astronomers measured it's brightness to change regularly by nearly 10 times over a 7.3 hour…

People in this episode

Host: Albert D. Grauer

Topics covered

• asteroids
• Oumuamua
• interstellar space
• astronomy
• space exploration

Keywords

• Oumuamua
• asteroid
• interstellar
• brightness variations
• space rock

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: SpaceX

Places: Hawaii, Arizona, Pluto

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