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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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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Dec 20 2017, 03:52 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 4251 Joined: 17-January 05 Member No.: 152 |
Just noticed this preprint from a few weeks ago that adds a new twist: they claim the object is tumbling, rather than spinning about a principle axis. This explains discrepancies between various period determinations, and may have something to say about a possibly violent past.
The preprint also points out that partial shadowing effects can exagerate the rotational brightness variation, and by modeling such effects they can get away with an axial ratio of less than 5:1. So even though they also observe a brightness variation of close to 10:1, this doesn't imply that the dimensions are 10:1. (Of course there's also the possibility of albedo variations as well.) |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 5th June 2024 - 03:44 PM |
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