November 21, 2017

Artist's impression of interstellar asteroid 'Oumuamua (Image ESO/M. Kornmesser)

An article published in the journal “Nature” describes the observations carried out on ‘Oumuamua, the named given to the interstellar asteroid whose discovery was announced only a few weeks ago. It was designated as A/2017 U1 but after the creation of a new class of objects for interstellar asteroids its designation was modified into 1I/2017 U1. Observations with ESO’s VLT (Very Large Telescope) and other telescopes showed that it’s likely dense, rocky, reddish and with a very elongated shape.