{"id":221608,"date":"2025-09-09T11:06:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T16:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/1st-known-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-is-an-exo-pluto-a-completely-new-class-of-object-scientists-say"},"modified":"2025-09-09T11:06:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T16:06:34","slug":"1st-known-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-is-an-exo-pluto-a-completely-new-class-of-object-scientists-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/1st-known-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-is-an-exo-pluto-a-completely-new-class-of-object-scientists-say","title":{"rendered":"1st known interstellar visitor \u2018Oumuamua is an \u2019exo-Pluto\u2018 \u2014 a completely new class of object, scientists say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/1st-known-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-is-an-exo-pluto-a-completely-new-class-of-object-scientists-say.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Instead of being a mix of water ice, rock and carbon-rich material left over from the formation of the solar system, \u2018Oumuamua appears to be almost pure nitrogen ice. And rather than being a compact ball, the visitor is more elongated than any known body in the solar system and starkly different from the interstellar Comets <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/interstellar-comet-borisov-most-pristine-ever\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/interstellar-comet-borisov-most-pristine-ever\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"[Space> Article - Inline Link\" data-mrf-link=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/interstellar-comet-borisov-most-pristine-ever\" cmp-ltrk=\"[Space] Article - Inline Link\" cmp-ltrk-idx=\"4\" mrfobservableid=\"1dcb87c5-64a2-4dce-aa47-44e619c7880e\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/interstellar-comet-borisov-most-pristine-ever\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" class=\"\" data-custom-tracking-id=\"1072373640949324996\" data-hawk-tracked=\"hawklinks\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\"]2I\/Borisov<\/a> and <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/astronomy\/comets\/new-interstellar-object-3i-atlas-everything-we-know-about-the-rare-cosmic-visitor\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/astronomy\/comets\/new-interstellar-object-3i-atlas-everything-we-know-about-the-rare-cosmic-visitor\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"[Space> Article - Inline Link\" data-mrf-link=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/astronomy\/comets\/new-interstellar-object-3i-atlas-everything-we-know-about-the-rare-cosmic-visitor\" cmp-ltrk=\"[Space] Article - Inline Link\" cmp-ltrk-idx=\"5\" mrfobservableid=\"30d07841-3ed4-4e28-9fb3-6623bb2d855f\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/astronomy\/comets\/new-interstellar-object-3i-atlas-everything-we-know-about-the-rare-cosmic-visitor\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" class=\"\" data-custom-tracking-id=\"5762291939387802189\" data-hawk-tracked=\"hawklinks\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\"]3I\/ATLAS<\/a>, the only other known interstellar visitors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018Oumuamua is in a different category of object,\u201d Desch told Space.com by email. \u201cIt\u2019s much harder to find, but there are a lot more of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Planets arise from the cloud of gas and dust left over after a star is born. The first few million years are chaotic as the growing worlds jostle for their place around the young star\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Instead of being a mix of water ice, rock and carbon-rich material left over from the formation of the solar system, \u2018Oumuamua appears to be almost pure nitrogen ice. And rather than being a compact ball, the visitor is more elongated than any known body in the solar system and starkly different from the interstellar [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asteroid-comet-impacts","category-existential-risks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}