`Oumuamua Animation (Artist’s View)

This animation shows an artist's view of the wayward interstellar visitor ‘Oumuamua (pronounced oh-MOO-ah-MOO-ah) racing toward the outskirts of our solar system. The object, heated by the Sun is venting gaseous material from its surface, as a comet would. Researchers suggest this “outgassing” is one possible cause for ‘Oumuamua’s slight acceleration, as detected by several telescopes. The irregularly shaped object is now traveling away at about 70,000 miles per hour. As the complex rotation of the object makes it difficult to determine the exact shape, there are many models of what it could look like.