Rarest Objects That Visited Our Solar System

Bright Side

Our solar system has had some really rare visitors. Oumuamua was the first known interstellar object to zip through our solar system, and scientists think it might be a weird-shaped asteroid or even a piece of a broken planet. Then there's Comet Borisov, another interstellar traveler that gave us a peek at what comets from other solar systems look like. Asteroid 514107, also known as Kaʻepaokaʻāwela, has an unusual backwards orbit around the sun, probably because it was captured from another star system. Let's dive into their unusual world!   Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00Our solar system is full of mysterious objects that come from, well, everywhere. In October 2017,

00:07researchers in Hawaii spotted a mysterious thing that they dubbed a muamua.

00:12This means a visitor from a faraway land in Hawaiian. Or, that's a really big cow!

00:18It followed an escape orbit. It literally escaped from its planet's gravitational pull, like throwing a ball into space never to return.

00:26This meant that this weird thing arrived from somewhere outside of our solar system.

00:33There were tons of theories about what it was, from a simple asteroid to an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

00:39Scientists even thought it was a chunk of nitrogen ice from a Pluto-like planet.

00:44Its strange shape only added to the mystery. The big changes in the light curves showed that this thing could be either

00:51elongated like a tube or more flat like a pancake.

00:54This thing was unlike anything we've seen before. A muamua didn't behave exactly like a comet or an asteroid.

01:02Comets are icy and form bright tails when they pass near the Sun, while asteroids are basically just rocks and don't form tails.

01:09A muamua has no tail and doesn't release gas, like me.

01:13But it's not your average rock either. Its surface is very shiny, almost like polished metal.

01:19When it passed by the Sun, it sped up, like it had a rocket on it.

01:23And it wasn't the Sun's gravity that gave a muamua the sudden boost.

01:28Scientists aren't sure what caused it. So, what in the world was that thing?

01:34After years of study,

01:36scientists now think that a muamua is probably a comet with frozen hydrogen on its surface. This hydrogen reacted with sunlight,

01:44speeding up the comet and changing its path.

01:47A muamua likely got all that hydrogen from being exposed to tons of cosmic rays for a long time.

01:53It got some nice red tint from them as well.

01:56A muamua was a visitor from a young chaotic solar system where collisions and migrations happen all the time.

02:03Such systems often toss many small objects around.

02:07It might have been pushed out by a planet like Jupiter, whose gravity is so insanely strong that it can fling huge things into outer

02:14space. The same thing often happens with comets here.

02:18A muamua already left our solar system, although similar objects visit us sometimes, about once per year.

02:25To learn more about these mysterious guests,

02:28astronomers plan to send a probe to chase a muamua.

02:31We'll use Earth's and Jupiter's orbits to slingshot it fast enough to catch up with the comet.

02:36But some of the unexpected visitors stayed a bit longer.

02:42In October 2019,

02:44NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took a picture of a bluish comet trailing dust and gas.

02:50It was already in the solar system at the time, around 260 million miles away from Earth,

02:56somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. We saw the glowing dust surrounding it,

03:00but we couldn't yet see its nucleus since it's way too small.

03:04Well, small is relative here. The thing is about 3,200 feet across,

03:09which is like the length of nine football fields. In March 2020,

03:13Hubble images showed that a small fragment of the comet broke away from the nucleus.

03:18That means that the comet is very active, unlike a muamua.

03:23As we observed it further, we found that the nucleus is a loose mix of ice and dust particles.

03:29Its surface is also very similar to others, with rough areas and smooth blankets of icy, dusty debris.

03:36The comet was discovered by an amateur astronomer, Gennady Borisov. So it got the name Comet 2I Borisov.

03:44Congratulations!

03:45Scientists quickly confirmed it came to us from outside our solar system.

03:49And this thing sure was an enthusiastic tourist. It traveled at a breakneck speed of about

03:56110,000 miles per hour. That's fast enough to circle the Earth four times in just one hour.

04:01This visit was fascinating for several reasons.

04:04Most comets in our solar system come from the Kuiper belt or the Oort cloud.

04:09The Kuiper belt is a region of space beyond the orbit of Neptune.

04:13It's like a big distant ring around the Sun, filled with many small icy objects.

04:18All of them are ancient leftover pieces from the time when our solar system was still very young. The Oort cloud is much farther.

04:26It's like a giant bubble around the solar system, also filled with super old icy objects.

04:31Most long-period comets come from there. But where did the Comet 2I Borisov come from? We still don't know for sure.

04:39Scientists say that it likely formed in another star system,

04:43which could be either younger or older than our solar system. Would be weird if there was a third option, NASA.

04:49Anyway, it might have been kicked out from its home system, just like Oumuamua.

04:55Although Comet 2I Borisov is too small to hold on to its own atmosphere,

05:00it developed a coma when it approached the Sun. Now, coma is a funny name for that beautiful glowing cloud of gas and dust

05:07that surrounds the comet's nucleus. It forms when the Sun's heat causes the comet's ice to vaporize,

05:14releasing dust and gas into space.

05:16This one was friendlier than Oumuamua and gave us some more time to study it. As a result,

05:22we learned more about its cool unique traits. For example, it had never interacted with another star.

05:28But unfortunately, Borisov had to leave too. Now, it's on a path that will take it back into interstellar space.

05:36However, there are many more visitors to come, and you might have heard of this one.

05:41The Great Comet of

05:441996. That's what we called the Comet Hayakutake.

05:47It was also named after the astronomer who discovered it, Yuji Hayakutake. In a beautiful coincidence,

05:54it was discovered on New Year's Eve. On March 25th,

05:581996, this thing passed by incredibly close to Earth, only about 0.1

06:04astronomical units away, a bit farther than the Moon. It passed over the North Pole.

06:09This made it one of the closest comet encounters in 200 years.

06:14It was visible worldwide, and it looked very bright and beautiful in the sky,

06:18stretching out widely. And it didn't stay for one night only. It got more and more visible during March,

06:24becoming one of the brightest objects in the night sky by the end of the month. The comet only fully faded by the end of May.

06:32It's a long-period comet, which means it takes hundreds of years to orbit the Sun. The last time it visited was about

06:4017,000 years ago, and now its orbital period increased to 70,000 years.

06:45But don't be upset. There are other comets that will brighten our days and nights.

06:50Besides, some space objects prefer to stay around for longer.

06:55Now, there's this asteroid with a multi-syllabic name that, to pronounce, is above my pay grade.

07:01This name in Hawaiian means the mischievous one of Jupiter. Luckily, scientists had mercy on us and dubbed it BZ.

07:08Hey, speaking for all the other narrators, thank you!

07:12It's a small asteroid, only about 1.8 miles in diameter.

07:16You can guess from the name that it shares an orbit with Jupiter.

07:19But there's a cool catch. The asteroid moves in the opposite direction, which is known as a retrograde orbit.

07:26The unusual asteroid was discovered on November 2014. It orbits the Sun for about 11 years and 8 months,

07:34sometimes passing inside and outside of Jupiter's orbit.

07:38It's been this way for at least a million years, and it will remain so for about a million more.

07:43But why does it move so unusually?

07:48BZ might actually be an interstellar immigrant.

07:52Perhaps it passed by our solar system about 4.5 billion years ago, around the time when the Sun was just forming.

07:58Then it got captured by gravity, but saved its opposite orbit. Or maybe it came from the Oort cloud.

08:06Then it could get its weird orbit from the mysterious planet Nine, a hypothetical planet

08:11that's believed to exist in our solar system far beyond Jupiter.

08:15In any case, this asteroid gives us more insight into the history of the solar system

08:20and how organic materials can travel to us from outer space.

08:25Now, at any given time, there are thousands of objects in our solar system that come from outer space.

08:31They stay here for different lengths of time.

08:33But sometimes we get lucky, and they end up teaching us a lot about interstellar space.

08:42That's it for today. So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

08:48Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side.

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