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A small meteor that hit Earth in 2014 was from another star system, and may have left interstellar debris on the seafloor. An object from another star system crashed into Earth in 2014, the United States Space Command (USSC) confirmed in a newly-released memo. The meteor ignited in a fireball in the skies near Papua New Guinea, the memo states, and scientists believe it possibly sprinkled interstellar debris into the South Pacific Ocean. The confirmation backs up the breakthrough discovery of the first interstellar meteor—and, retroactively, the first known interstellar object of any kind to reach our solar system—which was...

“Some scientists find my hypothesis unfashionable, outside of mainstream science, even dangerously ill conceived,” writes Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard. “But the most egregious error we can make, I believe, is not to take this possibility seriously enough.” So begins Loeb’s new book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. Loeb is the director of the school’s Institute for Theory and Computation, and founding director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, and he wants you to take the possibility of aliens seriously. Back in October 2017, our solar system received a strange visitor, unlike any seen before. Scientists...

Oumuamua appeared to have been dropped in on our solar system from some great interstellar height, picking up even more speed on a slingshot-like loop around the sun before soaring away for parts unknown. It is now already halfway to Jupiter, too far for a rendezvous mission and rapidly fading from the view of Earth’s most powerful telescopes. Astronomers scrambling to glimpse the fading object have revealed additional oddities. ‘Oumuamua was never seen to sprout a comet-like tail after getting close to the sun, hinting it is not a relatively fresh bit of icy flotsam from the outskirts of a...

To recap, when `Oumuamua was first observed on October 19th, 2017, by astronomers using the University of Hawaii’s Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS), the object (then known as C/2017 U1) was initially believed to be a comet. However, subsequent observations revealed that it was actually an asteroid and it was renamed 1I/2017 U1 (or 1I/`Oumuamua). Follow-up observations made using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) were able to place constraints on the asteroid’s size, brightness, composition, color and orbit. These revealed that `Oumuamua measured some 400 meters (1312 feet) long, is very elongated, and spins on its axis...

Now, new data reveal the interstellar interloper to be a rocky, cigar-shaped object with a somewhat reddish hue. The asteroid, named ‘Oumuamua by its discoverers, is up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-elongated—perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide. That aspect ratio is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date. While its elongated shape is quite surprising, and unlike asteroids seen in our solar system, it may provide new clues into how other solar systems formed. The observations and analyses were funded in part by NASA and appear...

"... It appears to be a dark, reddish, highly-elongated rocky..." "varies dramatically in brightness by a factor of ten as it spins on its axis every 7.3 hours."

Full title: ESO observations show first interstellar asteroid is like nothing seen before. For the first time ever astronomers have studied an asteroid that has entered the Solar System from interstellar space. Observations from ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile and other observatories around the world show that this unique object was traveling through space for millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system. It appears to be a dark, reddish, highly-elongated rocky or high-metal-content object. The new results appear in the journal Nature on 20 November 2017.

The IAU also approved an official scientific designation for 'Oumuamua: 1I/2017 U1. This is a first-of-its-kind moniker; the "I" stands for "interstellar." Previously, small objects like 'Oumuamua have received standard comet or asteroid designations, which sport a "C" or "A," respectively, in place of the "I." 'Oumuamua was first spotted on Oct. 19, by astronomers using the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawaii. The smallish object was first classified as a comet but then regarded as an asteroid, after further observations revealed no evidence of a coma (the fuzzy cloud of gas and dust that surrounds a comet's core). Analysis of 'Oumuamua's trajectory soon...

To date, every comet humanity has seen inside the Solar System has come from the Solar System, whether it's the Kuiper Belt or the billions of comets believed to make up the Oort Cloud. Now, however, it looks like astronomers might have found a comet of interstellar origin. They've used Hawaii's Pan-STARRS 1 telescope to track C/2017 U1, an object with a very eccentric, hyperbolic orbit (that is, moving quickly enough to escape gravitational pull) that wasn't connected to the Sun. The trajectory suggests that it's a comet which escaped from a nearby star, rather than something knocked out a...

Astronomers are set to scan an 'alien' comet for signs of extraterrestrial signals The cigar-shaped object, named 'Oumuamua, sailed past Earth last month The mysterious comet is the first interstellar object seen in the solar system Now a team of alien-hunting scientists led by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner is scanning the object for radio signals Astronomers are set to scan an 'alien' comet for signs of extraterrestrial technology. The cigar-shaped asteroid, named 'Oumuamua by its discoverers, sailed past Earth last month and is the first interstellar object seen in the solar system. A team of alien-hunting scientists, led by Russian...