First Known Interstellar Visitor is an “Oddball”

Gemini South telescope color composite image of ‘Oumuamua (center). This composite was produced by combining 192 images obtained through three visible and two near-infrared filters totaling 1.6 hours of integration on October 27 at the Gemini South telescope. Processing removes the background stars. The field of view represents a patch of sky 5,000 km (~3,100 miles) on a side at the distance of ‘Oumuamua. Visible colors for the image were assigned to each filter as follows: g (398-552 nm) = blue r (562-692 nm) = green i (706-850 nm) = yellow z (830-925 nm) = orange Y (970-1070 nm) = red While assigning visible colors to filtered images is somewhat subjective, the resulting color of ‘Oumuamua is similar to the hue of Saturn’s moon Iapetus in optical light and possibly indicates a similar composition (a combination of minerals, carbon, iron, and organic compounds). Color composite produced by Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage, using Gemini South GMOS data from Meech et. al.