Maverick asteroid might be an immigrant from outside the solar system

Author: Emily Conover / Source: Science News

NOT LIKE THE OTHERS Many asteroids share Jupiter’s orbit (illustrated, not to scale). Most asteroids travel in the same direction around the sun as the planet. But there’s one moving in reverse, which could indicate it came from outside the solar system.

An asteroid that flouts the norms of the solar system might not be from around here.

The renegade asteroid travels around the sun in reverse — in the opposite direction of the planets and most other asteroids (SN: 5/13/17, p. 5). Now two scientists suggest that’s because the space rock originated from outside the solar system, according to a paper published May 21 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.

Astronomers Fathi Namouni of the Côte d’Azur Observatory in Nice, France, and Helena Morais of Universidade…

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