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The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space

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Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space

#101

Post by nothrabannosir »

pgalu wrote: post #74
nothrabannosir wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artist’s is fine (“artist his”), artists’s would be artists’. Depends on how many people worked on the art piece :)

For the record, the expansion "... his" is considered "folk etymology": a reanalysis from the Early Modern English period in the language's history. Notice for example how it doesn't make sense for feminine words: "Mary's house". In fact, the possessive "'s" is a leftover from Old English, where the inflectional suffix "es" marked the genitive case.

Yeah it's a mnemonic device, nonetheless quite useful to explain the rule.

Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space

#102

Post by autokad »

Cal___ wrote: post #4

I 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…

what upsets me most is that I dont think I'll be around by time we get the technology and funding to capture one of these things and study/learn from it

Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space

#104

Post by Mikho »

The first thought looking at the picture -- it could be interstellar probe created by some alien race. Rotation and metal body -- something to think about. This reminds me "The Dark Forest Theory" described in the fantastic trilogy "The Three-Body Problem" by Cixin Liu [1] -- Chinese Isaac Asimov. Really great read in case you didn't read it yet.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/07653...

Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space

#107

Post by wallace_f »

Cyphase wrote: post #54
nichtich wrote: post #29

If there're a lot of these objects entering and leaving solar system every year, and suppose some day in the near future we can keep track of them all, can we use them for us to send out larger probes? We see a rock coming near us, and send out a probe to its path. And before the collision the probe create a buffer object at the rear end so that it wouldn't be totally destroyed. After that the probe can free ride for…

Not sure about a buffer object, but a tether on a reel might work. You harpoon the object, then let it pull the probe, giving lots of slack according to the engineering tolerances of the harpoon in the object (don't want it to come loose), the tether (don't want it to snap), the reel (don't want it to spin apart or get stuck or any one of a number of things), and the probe (don't want it damaged under extreme acceler…

Might be possible, but the tensile strength required may be beyond our material science capabilities.

A harpoon impacting an object going 26km/s would experience something like 12,000gs even if you gave it a 1km-long buffer.

So your harpoon would have to be rocket-assisted. The problem now is how long does your need to be? The tensile strength to carry the weight of the tether itself may make this impossible.

Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space

#108

Post by bmm6o »

Tossrock wrote: post #28
robin_reala wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of course, of all the planets in the solar system, it made its closest approach to Earth, an astronomical "near miss" at just 0.16 AU That is presumably because there’re lots of these objects, but we can only detect the ones closest to us.

The authors estimate that there is ~1 such object within 1 AU of the sun at any given time. So, more common than we previously expected, but not exactly teeming. You're right that it was detected due to its nearness though - it was picked up in a routine near-Earth object survey by Pan-STARRS

1 within 1 AU of the sun means that there should be one passing within 0.16 AU of us on a ~yearly basis.

Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space

#109

Post by Cyphase »

wallace_f wrote: post #107
Cyphase wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about a buffer object, but a tether on a reel might work. You harpoon the object, then let it pull the probe, giving lots of slack according to the engineering tolerances of the harpoon in the object (don't want it to come loose), the tether (don't want it to snap), the reel (don't want it to spin apart or get stuck or any one of a number of things), and the probe (don't want it damaged under extreme acceler…

Might be possible, but the tensile strength required may be beyond our material science capabilities. A harpoon impacting an object going 26km/s would experience something like 12,000gs even if you gave it a 1km-long buffer. So your harpoon would have to be rocket-assisted. The problem now is how long does your need to be? The tensile strength to carry the weight of the tether itself may make this impossible.

> Might be possible, but ... may be beyond our material science capabilities.

Certainly, for now and a while to come.

Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space

#110

Post by wallace_f »

Cyphase wrote: post #109
wallace_f wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be possible, but the tensile strength required may be beyond our material science capabilities. A harpoon impacting an object going 26km/s would experience something like 12,000gs even if you gave it a 1km-long buffer. So your harpoon would have to be rocket-assisted. The problem now is how long does your need to be? The tensile strength to carry the weight of the tether itself may make this impossible.

> Might be possible, but ... may be beyond our material science capabilities. Certainly, for now and a while to come.

Perhaps some ultra-lightweight probe using some sophisticated ultra-strong elastic tethers may be a way to accelerate an object at an orders of magnitude greater speed using asteroids as counter-weights. Probably nothing strong-enough, though.
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