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Accelerating ‘Oumuamua with H2 is challenging

Nature volume 623, pages E14–E15 (2023)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 29 November 2023

The Original Article was published on 22 March 2023

arising from: J. B. Bergner & D. Z. Seligman Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05687-w (2023).

The interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua (hereafter ‘Oumuamua) was non-gravitationally accelerated when it flew past the Sun. Bergner and Seligman1 proposed that this acceleration is caused by thermal outgassing of molecular hydrogen (H2) that was formed by galactic cosmic-ray (GCR) radiolysis of water (H2O) ice during ‘Oumuamua’s interstellar travel. However, modelling, laboratory and theoretical results show that it is unlikely that sufficient H2 can be produced in ‘Oumuamua to accelerate it if the object largely consisted of H2O ice. This implies that there must be another or additional driver of ‘Oumuamua acceleration or the object has a very unusual ice composition and is substantially older (>500 Myr) than postulated.

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Fig. 1: The H2:H2Oinitial yield for a H2O-ice-dominated object irradiated by GCRs.

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The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

I thank M. Rubin, K. Altwegg and E. G. Bøgelund for useful discussions. Support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Ambizione grant 193453 is acknowledged.

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  1. Space Research and Planetology Sciences, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Niels F. W. Ligterink

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Ligterink, N.F.W. Accelerating ‘Oumuamua with H2 is challenging. Nature 623, E14–E15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06697-y

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