Mysterious Space Rock That Lit Up Canada Finally Explained by Science

ALBERTA-Scientists have concluded that an unexplained celestial object that lighted up the horizons across portions of Canada during February 2021 would not be a comet, despite starting from a faraway area of the solar system in which it is assumed to be. how comets are generated.

That space rock was reportedly discovered sometime before dawn early February 22, last year, generating a tremendously glowing ember as well as a glowing trail that lasted numerous moments after plunging through the Earth's sky at 38.5 miles a second, stated in a report from Home Wallah.

Based on different sightings, scientists determined that such an object had been in an orbital path around the sun for roughly 1,000 years before crashing with Earth, implying that this really came from a particularly remote region of the solar system, referred to as the Oort cloud.

The Components of Oort Cloud

As per Newsweek, this caused a lot of controversies. The Oort Cloud seems to be a thick layer of billions, if not trillions, of frozen objects that circle the sun much further than Pluto's orbit. Several of these bodies are ejected from the Oort Cloud but also wind up within the inner Solar System, where some form comets-giant masses of dust and ice featuring distinctive trajectories as they orbit the sun.

Scientists have generally assumed that perhaps the Oort Cloud is made up of these particles. That object that burnt up above Alberta, on the other hand, did not resemble a comet. Alternatively, it resembled a meteoroid, which are rock or iron lumps that are comparable to, but shorter than, asteroids and likely to linger inside the solar system's inner regions.

The presence of stony asteroids and comets in the Oort Cloud might alter current understanding regarding how the Oort Cloud originated, as per CNET.com.

"As the solar system formed, the Oort Cloud was inhabited by planetesimals-small objects that managed to accumulate to become planets-that were gravitationally scattered by the giant planets, mainly Jupiter and Saturn," Karen Meech, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, informed Newsweek. "Those Oort Clouds were long assumed to be filled by comets since the massive planets originated in an area of the solar system in which it was cold and where there was a lot of ice substance accessible."

Meech and her colleagues identified a handful of comets first from Oort Cloud which did not behave normally. With one thing, when comets approach the sun, they should become active, trailing tails of dust and gasses behind them. Several of these have not yet done this, earning them the moniker "Manx comets," which refers to a tailless cat breed.

Some of these Manx comets did not emit a similar color of light as other comets. Astronomers analyze the radiation emitted by meteors to determine their structure.

(Photo : MARHARYTA MARKO/GETTY)
A file image of a space rock against a starry background. Research into a space rock that burned up in the sky over Alberta, Canada, in February 2021 led astronomers to suspect it came from a distant part of the Solar System called the Oort Cloud.

ALSO READ: Comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) Leaves Astronomers Confused as Space Rock Heads to Sun After Visiting Earth

Alberta's Oort Cloud Discovery

Bill Bottke, chairman of the Southwest Research Institute's Department of Space Studies, replied to Newsweek about how much this means for our understanding of how the solar system originated.

"It might indicate that perhaps the initial asteroid belt is much broader, allowing debris expelled from it throughout earliest planet formation and development to account for a bigger proportion of such Oort cloud."

This same discovery of Oort Cloud non-comets such as Alberta could also give credence to the Grand Tack hypothesis, which proposes that Jupiter when first traveled as near the sun as Earth throughout the initial periods of the Solar System, scooping up many boulders particles and flinging them out towards Oort Cloud, as per Alan Jackson, a planetary astronomer at Arizona State University, Tempe, assured the journal Science.