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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#31
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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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Nov 2 2017, 10:37 AM
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#32
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2346 Joined: 7-December 12 Member No.: 6780 |
A coating of a few microns of a pigment like tholins should provide the visible color of the object. The interior may well be rocky. The color of tholins will also win over the colors of translucent minerals like silicates in a mineral-tholin mix.
A considerable portion of the material of a stellar system is probably ejected during the first few millions of years after its Jeans collapse, A rocky body of the inner stellar system may travel through outer parts or interstellar dust clouds, and collect a coating of tholins. Tholins should survive for some time in an inner stellar system, before they will be degraded by stellar wind or micrometeorites. That's just one out-of-the-hip scenario. There are certainly many more of varying likelihood. Amalthea seems to be dark red. It's not in the inner solar system. But it's an example of a small red body with the potential to be ejected by close encounters or collisions. The composition of the interior of a small body depends mostly on its origin. An outer layer may have accreted later, in a new environment. |
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