- A newly discovered comet hurtling toward the orbit of Mars has scientists scurrying to confirm whether it came from outside the solar system, a likely prospect that would make it the second such interstellar object observed in our planetary neighborhood.
"On our team we've been scrambling here at the University of Hawaii to get observations to make position measurements," said Karen Meech, an astronomer at the university whose team concluded that the object's size and tail of gas classify it as a comet. The comet, an apparent amalgam of ice and dust, is expected to make its closest approach to the sun on Dec. 8, putting it 190 million miles from Earth, on a route believed unique to such objects of interstellar origin.
The first was a cigar-shaped comet dubbed 'Oumuamua - a name of Hawaiian origin meaning a messenger from afar arriving first - that sailed into our planetary neighborhood in 2017, prompting initial speculation that it may have been an alien spacecraft. Astronomers soon reached a consensus that it was not.