Interstellar Interlopers, Coming in from the great beyond |
Interstellar Interlopers, Coming in from the great beyond |
Oct 27 2017, 01:40 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 541 Joined: 17-November 05 From: Oklahoma Member No.: 557 |
They finally found a chunk of something coming into the Solar System. Something much bigger than cosmic rays or dust particles.
Asteroid/comet in hyperbolic trajectory |
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Oct 28 2017, 11:58 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 890 Joined: 18-November 08 Member No.: 4489 |
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Oct 30 2017, 12:48 AM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
TheAnt,
Truly reaching this object will be quite difficult, but compared to sending a mission (much less a sample return!!!) to another star's system, it's outrageously easy. I think getting mere in situ isotopic analysis of heavier elements from an object like this would be extraordinarily valuable, and an examination of the morphology of chondritic material in an object like this (if there is such a thing) would weigh mightily in addition to that. Certainly it would be easier to target a future such object while it is close to the inner solar system, but we may have to wait decades for something like that… the mission would practically have to be ready on the pad for such an object to appear, and this certainly confounds conventional mission planning. Catching this one from behind fits more traditional planning but may require extraordinary resources. I might guess that the way ahead will be to develop the capability to target much smaller interlopers… there is presumably a power law relating size and frequency, and there must be interloping objects on a regular basis if one can lower the size requirement sufficiently. To take an entirely different approach, perhaps some of this material survives impact and rather than targeting a fast-flying body we could try to find such material that has already impacted the Moon or some other ancient, airless body. However, the velocities and energies involved may end that hope from the get-go. |
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