If there’s one space story that 2018 will be remembered for its the numerous ongoing investigations of the first interstellar object ever to be detected by mankind. Oumuamua, the elongated chunk of space stuff that might be an asteroid or might be a comet (or might be something else entirely), slipped around our Sun and back out into space so fast scientists barely had time to spot it. Now, NASA says it has a better idea of its size.
In the days following the detection of Oumuamua back in late 2017, NASA swung its Spitzer Space Telescope in the object’s direction, hoping to learn more about what the cigar-shaped body was and where it was headed. It had long since passed its closest approach to Earth and was already headed back out into space after swinging around the Sun. When NASA commanded the Spitzer telescope to observe it, it didn’t see anything at all.
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When NASA pointed its Spitzer telescope at Oumuamua they couldn’t even see it originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 15 Nov 2018 at 13:22:18 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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