NI astronomers observe huge space rock passing sun
A SKYSCRAPER-sized space rock which floated into our solar system has withstood the intense heat of the sun because it is coated in a special crust, research by astronomers in Northern Ireland suggests.
The object, known as Oumuamua, was heated to more than 300C as it passed by but it is thought a half-metre thick coating prevented it from being vaporised.
The cigar-shaped rock is likely to be the size and shape of London’s Gherkin skyscraper, according to research involving astronomers at Queen’s University, Belfast. The team, which also featured scientists from the US, Canada, Taiwan and Chile, believe they have made “key observations” about what the outer layer of the rock — named after the Hawaiian term for ‘scout’ or ‘messenger’ — is made up of.
Dr Michele Bannister, whose research is published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, said the rock “looks so much like a tiny world from our own home system”.
She likened the effect of the sun on the greyish-red object to an oven baking a cake. She said: “This object went past the sun and it was only heated like a good oven cooking a cake. It wasn’t actually particularly hot.
“The surface composition is consistent of a layer of insulating material, so something along the lines of dust and grit, maybe organic compounds.”
“We don’t know that the interior does contain ice but if it did contain ice it would have been insulated by the layer on the surface,” she added. Despite initial suggestions by the Seti project Breakthrough Listen that it could be an alien starship, Dr Bannister said the only “alien” element is that the rock has come from elsewhere in the galaxy.
Prof Alan Fitzsimmons, who is also based at Queen’s and whose own research is published in Nature Astronomy, said the “half-metre thick coating of organic-rich material could have protected a water-ice-rich comet-like interior from vaporising when the object was heated by the sun, even though it was heated to over 300 degrees centigrade”.