What a pity they did not call it Rama ;-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama
Came here for that comment!
The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
11–20 of 114 posts
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#12I think it's a shame that this story hasn't gotten more attention. True, it doesn't tell us as much about the nature of the universe as the discovery of the Higgs boson, and it doesn't represent a major advance in engineering like gravitational wave detection. But it is the only chance we have ever had to directly view a largeish piece of another solar system, just millions of miles away. The next time probably won't…
> The next time probably won't come until we send a probe to Proxima Centauri.
Well, I don't know about that. Who's to say how many interstellar objects pass through the solar system every year (earlier I read 1-10 a year, but who knows). Of course this is the first one we've actually detected (Roswell et al. jokes here), but our sensors and technology are only getting better. Even if Breakthrough Starshot[1] can launch in 10 years, and takes 25 years to get to the Alpha Centauri system, and we get usable data back in 4.37 years, that's ~40 years we'd have in which to detect another interstellar object here first.
EDIT: Also see the sibling comment[2] by nkurz[3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#13I think it's a shame that this story hasn't gotten more attention. True, it doesn't tell us as much about the nature of the universe as the discovery of the Higgs boson, and it doesn't represent a major advance in engineering like gravitational wave detection. But it is the only chance we have ever had to directly view a largeish piece of another solar system, just millions of miles away. The next time probably won't…
But it is the only chance we have ever had to directly view a largeish piece of another solar system, just millions of miles away. The next time probably won't come until we send a probe to Proxima Centauri.
While this is the only one we've seen so far, the current belief is that similar objects might actually quite common. A parallel newspaper article in the Guardian [1] cites a paper out of UCLA [2], and works through the math:
The other group of astronomers, led by David Jewitt,
University of California Los Angeles, estimated how
many other interstellar visitors like it there might
be in our solar system.
Surprisingly, they calculate that another 10,000 could
be closer to the Sun than the eighth planet, Neptune,
which lies 30 times further from the Sun than the Earth.
Yet these are currently undetected.
Each of these interstellar interlopers would be just
passing through. They are travelling too fast to be
captured by the gravity of the Sun. Yet it still takes
them about a decade to cross our solar system and
disappear back into interstellar space.
If this estimate is correct, then roughly 1,000 enter
and another 1,000 leave every year – which means that
roughly three arrive and three leave every day.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2017...
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#14Found to be among the most elongated deep space objects known: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42053634
Can't help but think of the Chindi!
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#15"This artist's concept shows [...]"
F you artists concept. Drawing fantasy pictures in news messages is not ok.
+ I'm no grammar guy, nor a native speaker, but "artists's" is wrong, isn't it?
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#16"This artist's concept shows [...]" F you artists concept. Drawing fantasy pictures in news messages is not ok. + I'm no grammar guy, nor a native speaker, but "artists's" is wrong, isn't it?
Artist’s is fine (“artist his”), artists’s would be artists’. Depends on how many people worked on the art piece :)
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#17How close to earth did it pass ? A possible extinction event just flew bye and there where nothing we could do about. Btw, that looks like a gravity assist/slingshot ...
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#18"This artist's concept shows [...]" F you artists concept. Drawing fantasy pictures in news messages is not ok. + I'm no grammar guy, nor a native speaker, but "artists's" is wrong, isn't it?
>Drawing fantasy pictures in news messages is not ok.
You are aware that astronomers and universities and even NASA regularly collaborate with such artists to create photorealistic simulations of planets, moons, and similar objects, and that lots of information and striving for accuracy goes into making those pictures right?
Plus, when they say "artist" they don't mean they asked some Picasso to make a drawing of the object for art's sake, but tasked someone (graphic designer etc) to make a realistic depiction of it given the data they know.
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#19I think it's a shame that this story hasn't gotten more attention. True, it doesn't tell us as much about the nature of the universe as the discovery of the Higgs boson, and it doesn't represent a major advance in engineering like gravitational wave detection. But it is the only chance we have ever had to directly view a largeish piece of another solar system, just millions of miles away. The next time probably won't…
it's a shame that this story hasn't gotten more attention.
I am the average person when it comes to this subject. It is just that we (the avg people) do not understand what this means.
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#20Elongated is not a very natural shape for rocks in space. It is going to get real interesting if this thing starts slowing down.
Already passed the Sun.
Which means it is in fact slowing down as it climbs out of the Sun's gravity well. It's just not the kind of slowing down that parent was hoping for.