An Extraterrestrial Visitor

Meteors hit the Earth all the time, occasionally with disastrous results (see the end of the dinosaurs) and occasionally we see comets in the heavens. We also see the stars above and wonder what they might be like. Further, there is the Kepler Mission which has currently found over 5000 exoplanet candidates circling other stars. The point is these events never co-mingle. We look up, we see stars, we see comets, we see meteor showers, but we never see comets or meteors in other star systems. All the flying things that pass across our line of view originate in the Kuiper Belt or from even farther out in the Oort Cloud.

However, once in a while, that whole paradigm is turned upside down. Recently, an object has entered the Solar System that scientists believe is from beyond our little place in the heavens. At first thought to be a comet, scientists now believe it is an asteroid whose trajectory indicates it came from outside our solar system, circled around the Sun and is heading back out to the way beyond, never to be seen again.

The object itself is called A/2017 U1 and was first discovered on October 19, 2017 by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS 1 telescope on the Haleakala crater on the island of Maui.

Scientists have long believed such objects must exist but have never had an opportunity to observe one close up. This particular visitor will no longer be visible after the next few weeks and after that, it will leave the Solar System for good. Oh well, it's nice to see that it wanted to stop by and it is encouraging to know that even though it takes a long time, things can travel from another star.

Image courtesy of Nasa and the University of Hawaii. Click on the image for a much larger and detailed view: