Where is Oumuamua headed?

constellation Pegasus
It will travel beyond Saturn’s orbit in January 2019; as it leaves our solar system, ‘Oumuamua will head for the constellation Pegasus. Preliminary orbital calculations suggest that the object came from the approximate direction of the bright star Vega, in the northern constellation of Lyra.

How big is the asteroid Oumuamua?

656.17′ʻOumuamua / Radius

Did Oumuamua accelerate away from the Sun?

Oumuamua has sped up In fact, it passed the orbit of Jupiter earlier than predicted, indicating it accelerated along its trajectory. Oumuamua was approximately 100,000 km farther than could be explained based on purely gravitational interactions.

Does Oumuamua rotate?

Belton et al. (2018) show ‘Oumuamua rotate around the shortest axis with a period of 8.67 ± 0.34 hr and around the long axis with a period of 54.48 hr. The origin of its tumbling motion is still uncertain. Rotational dynamics is an important key to understand the history and evolution of asteroids.

What makes Oumuamua special?

It’s the first interstellar object we’ve managed to observe. ‘Oumuamua is the first confirmed interstellar object we’ve ever been able to observe in our solar system. Despite this, scientists were expecting one at some point. This kind of event has, in fact, been expected for many decades.

Will Oumuamua return to Earth?

On 16 October it moved back north of the ecliptic plane and passed beyond the orbit of Mars on 1 November. ʻOumuamua passed beyond Jupiter’s orbit in May 2018, beyond Saturn’s orbit in January 2019, and will pass beyond Neptune’s orbit in 2022….Trajectory.

Distance	Date	Velocity km/s
2300 AU	2430	26.32

What’s so special about Oumuamua?

How close did Oumuamua get to the Sun?

Weryk spotted ‘Oumuamua less than a week after its closest approach to Earth, when it had come within 0.16 AU of our planet, more than 60 times the distance to the Moon. It had passed perihelion — its closest point to the Sun — more than a month before, flying within 0.25 AU of our star on September 9, 2017.

Will Oumuamua come back?

Why is Oumuamua accelerating?

‘Oumuamua, the first detected interstellar visitor to the Solar System, exhibits non-gravitational acceleration in its trajectory. In ruling out other means of propulsion, such as the evaporation of material via a cometary tail, it has been argued that radiation pressure is responsible for this acceleration.