The American space agency has announced that two mysterious objects, which are yet to be identified, are approaching Earth. It said that the agency recently spotted the said massive space objects hurtling towards Earth.
While the American space agency has pinpointed one as a comet, the other has left it slightly more baffled. The comet is set to fly close to Earth this week, but the mystery object isn’t expected to make an appearance until February this year.
The object, dubbed “2016 WF9,” was detected by NASA’s asteroid- and comet-hunting NEOWISE project on 27 November 2016. It is roughly 0.3 to 0.6 miles (0.5 to 1 kilometres) across and is in an orbit that takes it on a scenic tour of our solar system.
Reports said that while the mysterious 2016 WF9 is dark like a comet, it appears to lack the characteristic dust and gas cloud that defines a comet and that on 25 February, 2017, WF9 will approach Earth’s orbit at a distance of nearly 32 million miles (51 million kilometres) from our home planet.
NASA said however, that the object is “not a threat to Earth for the foreseeable future.”
Meanwhile, the other object, which has been firmly classified as a comet could be visible this week.
Reports further said that at the object’s farthest distance from the sun, it approaches Jupiter’s orbit, adding that over the course of 4.9 Earth-years, it travels inward, passing under the main asteroid belt and the orbit of Mars until it swings just inside Earth’s own orbit.
After that, it heads back toward the outer solar system.
However, NASA scientists are not sure whether it is a comet or an asteroid but Deputy Principal Investigator, James “Gerbs” Bauer at NASA’s JPL said that “2016 WF9 could have cometary origins.”
He added: “this object illustrates that the boundary between asteroids and comets is a blurry one; perhaps over time, this object has lost the majority of the volatiles that linger on or just under its surface.”
The comet, C/2016 U1 NEOWISE, “has a good chance of becoming visible through a good pair of binoculars, although we can’t be sure because a comet’s brightness is notoriously unpredictable,” said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at JPL.
Those in the northern hemisphere may be able to spot the comet in the southeastern sky shortly before dawn this week. It is moving farther south each day and it will reach its closest point to the sun, inside the orbit of Mercury, on 14 January, before heading back out to the outer reaches of the solar system for an orbit lasting thousands of years. [myad]
