Finally :-)

 

Something really interesting to me :-).

Scientists think they know why interstellar object 'Oumuamua moved so strangely

Follow the bouncing ball with this one if ya want to:-).

"Scientists have come up with a simple explanation for the strange movements of our solar system's first known visitor from another star."

"In October of 2017, astronomers in Hawaii spotted an object they called 'Oumuamua, which means "a messenger from afar arriving first," according to NASA. The reddish object was shaped like a cigar or a pancake, and was over 300 feet long. Its trajectory indicated that it had come from another solar system, traveling through the Milky Way galaxy for hundreds of millions of years before encountering our sun."

(Thats key, remember that.)

"Oddly, this interstellar object appeared to be slightly accelerating in a way that normally is associated with the outgassing of some kind of material. But astronomers couldn't detect any comet-like tail of dust or gas."

"Over the last few years, some speculated that the object must be made of exotic materials, and the mystery even led to suggestions that 'Oumuamua could be some kind of alien probe or spaceship."

(Until it can effectively rule out a possibility?

Then it's still on the table.)

"Now, though, in the journal Nature, two researchers say the answer might be the release of hydrogen from trapped reserves inside water-rich ice."

(Here is the spin on full display, earlier in the article (near the top) it stated:

"Scientists have come up with a simple explanation for the strange movements"

Is a ton different from:

"two researchers say the answer might be."

and goes on to say:

"the release of hydrogen from trapped reserves inside water-rich ice."

"That was the notion of Jennifer Bergner, an astrochemist with the University of California, Berkeley, who recalls that she initially didn't spend much time thinking about 'Oumuamua when it was first discovered.'

"It's not that closely related to my field. So I was like, this is a really intriguing object, but sort of moved on with my life," she says."

("It's not that closely related to my field."

Noted.

Mine neither.

I should believe you because exactly?)

"Bergner wondered if it could just be a water-rich comet that got exposed to a lot of cosmic radiation. That radiation would release the hydrogen from the water. Then, if that hydrogen got trapped inside the ice, it could be released when the object approached the sun and began to warm up. Astronomers who observed 'Oumuamua weren't looking for that kind of hydrogen outgassing and, even if they had been, the amounts involved could have been undetectable from Earth."

(So?

Even if we were looking for what we weren't?

We wouldn't have found it 

and we weren't looking for it anyway. 

This from someone who tells you it wasn't in their particular field.

"if that hydrogen got trapped inside the ice, 

it could be released 

when the object approached 

the sun."

100 Billion stars in the milky way galaxy yall.

i"ts trajectory indicated that it had come from another solar system, traveling through the Milky Way galaxy for hundreds of millions of years before encountering our sun."

If thats the case?

How much 

"hydrogen that got trapped inside the ice"

could still be left by this point?

"traveling through the Milky Way galaxy for hundreds of millions of years."

But it's OUR sun that it still has 

"hydrogen that got trapped inside the ice"

that it releases?

Come on.

What are the odds?

What did it do for hundreds of millions of years then?

Never orbit another of the 100 Billion other stars in our galaxy?

)

These people just assume we are all stupid I suppose.

"It turns out, this actually could account for the observed acceleration, says Bergner, who notes that the kind of "amorphous" water ice found in space has a kind of "fluffy" structure that contains empty pockets where gas can collect.

As this water ice warms up, its structure begins to rearrange, she says, and "you lose your pockets for hiding hydrogen. You can form channels or cracks within the water ice as parts of it are sort of compacting."

(Again, after traveling 100's of millions of years?

It still has ice to melt when it's approaching our sun?

How likely really?)

"It's an interesting, creative idea," says Karen Meech, with the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, who leads the team that initially found and observed 'Oumuamua. "It doesn't require a super-exotic mechanism."

(So is gravitational assist. Given how long it's been traveling in our galaxy? Which seems more likely to you? Not to mention all the other anomalies associated with it.)

"But she still thinks it's possible that 'Oumuamua is just a regular, ordinary comet that released enough water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide to account for the acceleration, and astronomers just didn't detect it."

(Well of course they didn't. They wouldn't have even if they were looking for it according to what was said earlier in the article.)

"What a lot of people don't realize is that in order to get a good spectrum to detect the gas, you usually have to have a pretty bright comet," she says. "And 'Oumuamua was not bright."

And even though no one detected dust coming off of it, she says it's possible that it wasn't throwing off the kind of fine dust that instruments look for. That's why she thinks "it's not outside of the bounds of reality that you could get it to all fit with it as a regular comet."

(Explain the shape then.

If it's a just a regular comet.)

"To her, the most compelling mystery about this object remains its shape. "It was so elongated," she says."

(Yeah, just like every other regular comet is right?)

"In 2024, the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory should come online and open up a floodgate. "They're predicting maybe one interstellar object a year," she says."

"I think what's important about this is to get all these creative ideas out there," says Meech. 

(Glad to help :-).

The article from nature magazine in case anybody is interested. Actually read this first yesterday then the NPR piece.

Acceleration of 1I/‘Oumuamua from radiolytically produced H2 in H2O ice