Solar System's First Interstellar Visitor Dazzles Scientists

Video file for media and public use. New data reveal the first detected interstellar object to be rocky, cigar-shaped, with a somewhat reddish hue. The asteroid, named 'Oumuamua by its discoverers, is up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-elongated-perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide. That aspect ratio is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date. While its elongated shape is quite surprising, and unlike asteroids seen in our solar system, it may provide new clues into how other solar systems formed. The interstellar object had been wandering through the Milky Way, unattached to any star system, for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system. Credit: NASA #W1TV