The enigmatic comet that could have come from outside the Solar System

[OyaYansa]

It is Comet C / 2017 UI, first sighted on October 18 by the PanSRARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii, and whose orbit is so strange that astronomers believe that its origin could be outside our Solar System.

According to the observations that were made over six days from the moment it passed closest to the Sun (and 30 million kilometers from Earth) this object follows a trajectory that is at an angle with the orbits of the planets and does not orbit around our Sun.

This route does not coincide with that done by most of the celestial bodies that come from the distant Oort cloud and that follow an elliptical orbit around our star and that is why they return every determined amount of years.

Everything seems to indicate that the C / 2017 UI, on the other hand, will only visit us this one time.

Far away place

"It comes from far away, but we can not go back and see where it started, it may come from outside our Solar System, but it's very difficult to know," Simon Porter, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute, told New Scientist magazine. in Boulder, Colorado, United States.

Another possibility is that it comes from our Solar System but that in its path it has interacted with Jupiter or another planet in such a way that this interaction has caused a change in its orbit.

To clarify the doubts as to their origin, researchers will continue to observe the comet that will still be visible - with the help of telescopes - for several weeks.

This, they hope, will allow us to analyze in detail the characteristics of the visitor's itinerary and thus clarify its history.

In the past, another comet-the C / 1980 E1-also approached Earth in an unusual orbit.

Later observations showed that it was the product of an encounter with Jupiter, whose gravity accelerated its speed.