‘Oumuamua, an interstellar asteroid, made itself known to Earth in October, looking just like a star in the night sky through a telescope. But over the past couple weeks, the astronomy community has sorted through pictures of ‘Oumuamua,’ and have revealed a fast-spinning, cigar-like object, unlike anything they have ever seen. It has a thick crust of carbon-rich material that has been hardened due to years of exposure to cosmic radiation in interstellar space. This crust could be protecting an icy interior and could explain why the asteroid shows no signs of being a comet, which is what scientists have long expected would come into our solar system. Researchers say ‘Oumuamua’s crust may have prevented heat from penetrating the surface and vaporizing the ice particles.
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