A mysterious space object that has baffled scientists since its discovery in 2017 is likely a breakaway piece of a Pluto-like planet.
According to a new study published in two research papers in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the pancake-shaped space object Oumuamua is thought to have been a chunk from a distant planet in another solar system. “Until now we had no way of knowing if other solar systems have Pluto-like planets, but now we’ve seen a piece of one pass Earth,” said Steven Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University and one of the authors of the new study.
The research states that Oumuamua is likely made of solid nitrogen, just like Pluto’s surface, which helps explain its unusual flat shape. “It was probably hit by a surface impact about half a billion years ago and thrown out of its mother system,” said Alan Jackson, an astronomer and planetary scientist in the state of Arizona and one of the authors of the study.
Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “messenger,” shot past our sun at 196,000 miles per hour in 2017. Scientists struggled to classify the object, which in some ways resembled a comet but also had other features that were highly unusual.
Professor Avi Loeb, a professor at Harvard University, previously theorized that the space object might be an alien thing, although Desch took down speculation. “Everyone is interested in aliens, and it was inevitable that this first object outside the solar system would make people think of aliens,” he said.