CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Our first known visitor from another star system has now been identified as a comet.

  

A European-led team makes the case in Wednesday's edition of the journal Nature.

  

Telescopes first spotted the mysterious cigar-shaped object last October as it zipped through the inner solar system. Since then, astronomers have flip-flopped between comet and asteroid.

  

Neither a coma nor tail was spotted, hallmarks of an icy comet. But Italian astronomer Marco Micheli (Mee-KAY-lee) and his team report that the object's path and acceleration are best explained not just by gravity, but also gases shedding from a comet.

  

It's long gone, as are the chances of knowing conclusively what it was.