The first interstellar object in the Solar System may be a fragment of Pluto

" Everything about this object is consistent with the idea that it is a patch of nitrogen ice like what you see on the surface of Pluto," said Arizona State University exoplanet researcher Steve Desch.

The first recorded interstellar object, 1I/'Oumuamua, was first sighted in 2017 and was classified as a comet from another star system.

The comet could be the husk of an "exopluton, a completely unexpected category of Pluto-like objects predicted to visit the Sun," according to the researcher's conclusions, in July, at the conference 'Progress in Understanding the Pluto Mission: 10 Years After the Flyby' in Laurel, Maryland, in the United States.

Typically, solar system objects are a mix of water ice, rock and carbon-rich material, but 'Oumuamua appears to be almost pure nitrogen ice, research shows.

Observations made by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its 2015 flyby suggest that most of Pluto's surface is composed of nitrogen ice.

The visiting object is longer than any known body in the solar system and is different from the interstellar comets 2I/Borisov and 3I/ATLAS, the only other known interstellar objects.

"Fragments from the icy surfaces of Pluto-like dwarf planets were almost certainly ejected from our solar system, and 'Oumuamua has made us realize how much material must have been ejected," said Steve Desch.

In the Solar System, the orbits of the giant planets around the Sun eject a huge amount of material, mostly icy.

Initially, there could be enough material to create up to 2,000 Pluto-like interstellar objects, along with another 6,000 larger dwarf planets, according to the researcher.

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