Why This Bizarre Space Rock (Probably) Wasn’t Made by Aliens

If you’ve read The Daily Beast within the last few years, then you probably know this story already: in 2017, a weird rock from interstellar space decided to make a little visit to our little solar system here. Just a quick little flyby. The object, named ‘Oumuamua and thought to be a comet, was quite strange for a number of reasons. For one, it had an elongated rod shape and lacked a tail of gas and dust that’s typical for a comet that’s spewing off frozen bits of matter. Perhaps most strangely of all, it was accelerating as it moved through the solar system.

For most scientists, ‘Oumuamua represented an anomalous figure we’d need to spend years studying in order to explain how it might have exhibited these very strange characteristics. For others, however, these were signs that we had just been visited by an object made by intelligent extraterrestrials. And in the ensuing years, that speculation hasn’t waned—in fact it’s only fueled notions that even more alien ships of similar design have visited our neck of the universe.

But here comes the cold water: a new study published in Nature on Wednesday has concluded that ‘Oumuamua’s odd acceleration was probably not because of some kind of extraterrestrial technology, but rather due to gas. The model suggests that hydrogen released from ice reserves simply led to an outgassing that pushed the object forward and caused it to speed up. Its physics are a bit unusual for a comet—but not out of the realm of what’s possible.

Read more at The Daily Beast.