Interstellar object 'Oumuamua may be chunk of 'Pluto-like planet'

Credit: Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration

[tommunyon]

Astronomy and astrophysics provide endless fascinating revelations. Makes me want to go back to college, even at my advanced age.

[eleven_roses]

Like the cave man who only has seen rocks thoughout his life and when confronted with a cell phone thinks it's just another shiny rock

[markgrayson]

Melting nitrogen ice explains the shape and trajectory with no visible tail, so they hypothesize that Oumuamua was a chunk of nitrogen which lost 95% of its mass before discovery.

[RedSquirrelHunter]

I was thinking this months ago, solid planet core collision would make odd looking chunks of rock

[falcoperegrinus]

And then you have the "it's interstellar, therefore it's aliens" people. 🙄

[mosshark]

Interesting.. Kudos to these astronomers.👍

[kilroy]

What I find interesting is that generally, a given cloud that forms a solar system usually keeps all of its material close by. That is, even a portion that slingshots due to the tug of a high gravity object doesn't build up enough speed to truly leave the solar system. But maybe an impact could do it. So either this chunk of whatever is from a collision that occurred who knows how long ago in our solar system, or... it came from a different one. If it came from a different one, that must have been a very hard impact to eject this piece away, allowing it to escape.

[cwo]

Ok, I think I get the theory but here is an assumption (and yes, I know) and a question. First the assumption: any impact/collision of sufficient magnitude to cause a football field size object to cleave off of its home planet would necessarily involve the release of a tremendous amount of energy, right? If that is correct, why is it that the nitrogen ice was ablated by a close pass by the Sun (which I get is supper hot) but not by the heat of the ejecting event? We’re y’all able to do any modeling of the presumed impact/ejection theory to estimate energy/heat released? I’m just wondering if terrestrial impacts in polar regions or during periods of glaciation did/could have ejected large water-ice fragments into orbit, or beyond. Thanks for your work. I’m really enjoying the mystery and debate surrounding Omuamua.

[DontHLDBack]

Not discrediting these guys but this is still best guess, and we really don't know what it was or where it came from. The fact that it sped up and changed trajectory is very strange.

[bigjohn]

Well this is an Idea but it's just that at the moment! Till we can go and get a bit of it or a close up look

[Solo-jpnq]

For gavitational reason an object might not readily pass in front of the sun unless by it own force the gravitational path of the object would make that clear

[kdcarus]

Who would downvote this? It's informative.

[rickcreighton]

Its all educated guesses. No one really knows. Its what one wants to believe.

[tasha]

Why we talking about this 4 years later?

[prncssbby]

I didn't know that ice could travel 39.17 light years at 87.3km/s without virtually losing any mass

thanks for the math science community!

[kainecarleythecrousader]

I thought it was a long tube floating in space

[Haegemon]

So that's how it is. We need to write a paper to accept that in other parts of the Universe just may happen the same that happens in our Solar system. And since is not bad enough then we make a theory to justify an object we just missed and we have no more chances to observe.
What may be or what may not be... We got a Centaur stage garbage roaming the Sun, and scientists thought it was an asteroid until they could give a closer look, something that's not going to happen with this Omoamua.

[barnesj]

In the beginning there was the void, before our Heavenly Father got to work there was a flushing sound and behold a cigar shaped log came to pass through the plumbing system and it was Good!

[RWin-fpjn]

Well its is obvious that Pluto did collide with Charon, causing sputnik planum on pluto impact area and the 'red dot' on charon (as well as the equatorial impact crumple zoen at Charon). Glad the community is starting to admit to this obvious event. Whether this led to a pan cake chunk of ice we call oumuamua ? Again in our solar system there has never ever been seen an object with a 10 to 1 ratio in length, even in debris of impacts. Moreover Spitzer would have noticed nitrogen outgassing in Oumuamua and did not see it. So an amateurisitc explanation once more. So far Avi leads 6-0. Good arguments remain welcome though....

[Solo-jpnq]

I can not see why an object passing the sun is rare or the shape of the object is not consistent with your hypothesis as an astroid it at one point the object was spinning if not it would need force