Astronomers classify the mysterious interstellar object ‘Oumuamua as a comet

Oumuamua was first detected last October by the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS1 telescope. The reddish cigar-shaped object called ‘Oumuamua spotted last year tumbling through space is a comet, scientists said on 27 June, solving the mystery over how to classify the first interstellar object found passing through our solar system. “It does not display any tail in any observation we obtained,” said astronomer Marco Micheli of the European Space Agency’s SSA-NEO Coordination Centre in Italy, who led the study, published in the journal Nature. ‘Oumuamua was first detected last October by the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS1 telescope. “The discovery of ‘Oumuamua is an absolute first in the field, and it provided our first opportunity to study an object coming from another star and planetary system,” Micheli said.