Oumuamua: Watching the scientific process unfold

PAS is delighted to welcome Dr. Geoff Mathews, Professor of Astronomy at Foothill College and PAS member, for a highly engaging talk on the first known interstellar visitor to our solar system.

Abstract
Humanity's first discovered interstellar visitor, Oumuamua, was found in 2017 while it was already on its way out of our solar system. The sparse data astronomers could gather over the span of 2.5 months included a few surprises and mysteries. In this talk, Dr. Mathews will outline the observations, the potential explanations that have been raised, and, ultimately, what future observations will help us place this first known visitor in context.

About Professor Mathews
Dr. Mathews is Professor of Astronomy at Foothill College, where he teaches general education astronomy courses and develops browser-based Astro-education simulations. He received his PhD in Astronomy from the University of Hawaii at Manoa for studies of the gas and dust structure of protoplanetary disks. Dr. Mathews then carried out post-doctoral research at Leiden University before returning to UH Manoa to help implement new undergraduate majors in Astronomy and Astrophysics. He has been at Foothill College since 2017.

Attend In Person or Online
The talk is free of charge and open to the public at the Los Altos Public Library in Los Altos, California, and we'll also share it over Zoom.
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86425532669?pwd=64qzXWCtV3PklYtdxKDd5xsmu5pq0r.1
Meeting ID: 864 2553 2669
Passcode: 3.14159265

About the Image of Oumuamua
This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid: `Oumuamua. This unique object was discovered on 19 October 2017 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawai`i. Subsequent observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and other observatories around the world show that it was travelling through space for millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system. `Oumuamua seems to be a dark red highly-elongated metallic or rocky object, about 400 metres long, and is unlike anything normally found in the Solar System.
Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser.
More at [ESO.org](https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1737a/).