Astronomers Race to Study a Mystery Object From Outside Our Solar System<br />“I was not expecting to see anything like this during my career, even though we knew it was possible and<br />that these objects exist,” said Davide Farnocchia, a navigational engineer with NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.<br />Astronomers had predicted such an occurrence, but this is the first time that it has been recorded.<br />Then on Oct. 14 the object came within about 15 million miles of Earth, zipping by at about 37 miles per second, with respect to the Earth.<br />Now it’s moving away at about 25 miles per second, he said, and will exit the solar system at about 16 miles per second.
