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This paper reports the first OH 18-cm line observation of the first detected interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua) using the Green Bank Telescope. We have observed the OH lines at 1665.402 MHz, 1667.359, and 1720.53 MHz frequencies…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-04-25 Ryan S. Park , D. J. Pisano , T. Joseph W. Lazio , Paul W. Chodas , Shantanu P. Naidu

The low velocity of interstellar asteroid 1I/'Oumuamua with respect to our galaxy's Local Standard of Rest implies it is young. Adopting the young age hypothesis, we assess possible origin systems for this interstellar asteroid and for…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-03-18 Tim Hallatt , Paul Wiegert

'Oumuamua, the first bona-fide interstellar planetesimal, was discovered passing through our Solar System on a hyperbolic orbit. This object was likely dynamically ejected from an extrasolar planetary system after a series of close…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-03-14 Sean N. Raymond , Philip J. Armitage , Dimitri Veras , Elisa V. Quintana , Thomas Barclay

Micheli, et al. (2018) reported that a seven-parameter fit to the orbit of 1I/2017 U1 `Oumuamua indicated a non-gravitational acceleration in the anti-Solar direction, and attributed it to recoil from comet-like outgassing. The implied gas…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2019-04-05 J. I. Katz

Light curve observations of a recently discovered interstellar object 1I/`Oumuamua suggest that this object has an extremely elongated shape with the axis ratio 0.3 or smaller. Planetesimal collisions can produce irregular shapes including…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2019-04-03 Keisuke Sugiura , Hiroshi Kobayashi , Shu-ichiro Inutsuka

The recent discovery by Pan-STARRS1 of 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua), on an unbound and hyperbolic orbit, offers a rare opportunity to explore the planetary formation processes of other stars, and the effect of the interstellar environment on a…

In October 2017, the first interstellar object within our solar system was discovered. Today designated 1I/'Oumuamua, it shows characteristics that have never before been observed in a celestial body. Due to these characteristics, an…

Space Physics · Physics 2020-02-19 Adam Hibberd , Andreas M. Hein , T. Marshall Eubanks

Interstellar comets penetrating through the Solar System had been anticipated for decades. The discovery of asteroidal-looking 'Oumuamua was thus a huge surprise and a puzzle. Furthermore, the physical properties of the 'first scout' turned…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2019-10-15 Piotr Guzik , Michał Drahus , Krzysztof Rusek , Wacław Waniak , Giacomo Cannizzaro , Inés Pastor-Marazuela

The non-detection of a coma surrounding 1I/`Oumuamua, the first discovered interstellar object (ISO), has prompted a variety of hypotheses to explain its nongravitational acceleration. Given that forthcoming surveys are poised to identify…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-09-21 Samuel H. C. Cabot , Q. Daniel Wang , Darryl Z. Seligman

The first definite interstellar object observed in our solar system was discovered in October of 2017 and was subsequently designated 1I/'Oumuamua. In addition to its extrasolar origin, observations and analysis of this object indicate some…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2021-02-03 Adam Hibberd , Andreas M. Hein

The first interstellar object observed in our solar system, 1I/`Oumuamua, exhibited several peculiar properties, including extreme elongation and non-gravitational acceleration. Bergner and Seligman (hereafter BS23) proposed that…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-07-19 Thiem Hoang , Abraham Loeb

The large brightness variation in the observed lightcurve of Oumuamua is probably related to its shape, i.e., to the ratio between its longest axis and its shortest axis (aspect ratio). Several approaches found the aspect ratio of Oumuamua…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-02-12 A. Vazan , R. Sari

The arrival of the robustly hyperbolic asteroid A/2017 U1 has potentially interesting ramifications for the planet-formation process. Although extrapolations from a sample size of one are necessarily uncertain, order-of-magnitude estimates…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2017-11-08 Gregory Laughlin , Konstantin Batygin

Comets and asteroids have long captured human curiosity, and until recently, all documented examples belonged to our Solar System. That changed with the discovery of the first known interstellar object, 1I/2017 U1 ('Oumuamua), in 2017. Two…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-04-03 Josep M. Trigo-Rodríguez , Damya Souami , Maria Gritsevich , Marcin Wesołowski , Gennady Borisov

The first large interstellar object discovered near Earth, `Oumuamua, showed half a dozen anomalies relative to comets or asteroids in the Solar system. All natural-origin interpretations of the Oumuamua anomalies contemplated objects of a…

Popular Physics · Physics 2022-12-14 Abraham Loeb

The surfaces of airless bodies such as asteroids are exposed to many phenomena that can alter their physical properties. Bennu, the target of the OSIRIS-REx mission, has demonstrated how complex the surface of a small body can be. In 2019…

The first interstellar objects, 1I/`Oumuamua, 2I/Borisov and 3I/ATLAS, were discovered over the past decade. We follow the trajectories of known interstellar objects in the gravitational potential of the Milky Way galaxy to constrain their…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-08-08 Shokhruz Kakharov , Abraham Loeb

The earliest confirmed interstellar object, `Oumuamua, was discovered in the Solar System by Pan-STARRS in 2017, allowing for a calibration of the abundance of interstellar objects of its size $\sim 100\;$ m. This was followed by the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-09-01 Amir Siraj , Abraham Loeb , Tim Gallaudet

We suggest that the kinematics and properties of interstellar object A/2017 U1 point towards its formation in a protoplanetary disk in the ~45 Myr-old Carina or Columba young stellar associations, and subsequent ejection with a low peculiar…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2017-11-07 Eric Gaidos , Jonathan P. Williams , Adam Kraus

Without extensive maintenance, Dyson spheres inevitably disintegrate by asteroid impacts over billions of years. The resulting fragments would appear as anomalous interstellar objects, potentially sharing the unusual shape and motion of…

Popular Physics · Physics 2023-03-16 Abraham Loeb