What a pity they did not call it Rama ;-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama
Would be interesting if it changed course.
The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
51–60 of 114 posts
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#52I recommend anyone interested read the paper which is available as a preprint from Nature (for the moment): goo.gl/cSsHoj (link shortened due to having an embedded access token). Some tantalizing points from the paper: - They constrained the aspect ratio in two dimensions to be 10:1:C, but the third dimension is unconstrained. Depending on which axis the object is rotating around, C could either be 1, or 20. Either o…
- strange aspect ratio - tensile strength (it should be cartwheeling, there is a physics theorem which means everything tends to this configuration) - large flat or concave sections. - others are reporting it's mostly metallic. I'll say it: did anyone consider an alien spaceship? The paper seems to deduce "asteroidal" by ruling out other things, rather than by a positive measurement of rock spectra, unless I've misre…
Well, if so - they didn't find anything of interest as they are now leaving...
https://www.popsci.com/interstellar-object-solar-system#page...
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
If there is one within 1 AU of the Sun at any given time, then there are ~10^16 of them within a sphere out to the nearest star. I'll leave it to you to decide whether that's teeming or not.
Surely they're more dense near the sun? Not sure you can assume a uniform spacing and not account for the gravitational attraction. But I'm sure you know more about this than I do.
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#54If 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 acceleration).
With enough tether and a low-enough-friction reel with magnetic bearings (think of the ungodly RPMs), you can accelerate the probe at almost any speed you'd like, within reason, although it would be best to accelerate as quickly as possible without risking. And remember that you only need to get the whole harpoon/tether/reel (HTR, or HiTchhikeR; you saw it here first) mechanism in range of the object as it passes by, so it can be bulkier than you would put on a probe moving under its own power. Or you could start off as usual, maybe with a gravity assist, which would allow for a less sophisticated HTR.
Then if you want to be clever, you can turn all those RPMs into stored energy. But that might not be worth the trouble.
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#55What a pity they did not call it Rama ;-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama
The Economist had the same thought:
https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/217308...
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#56I 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 thro…
Would it still be travelling too fast to be captured if it hit the sun directly?
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#57Did anyone check if it is rotating and at the right rpm to produce planetary gravity inside?
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#58I thought "deep space" was intergalactic space, the really big void. But if the object came from within the Milky Way itself, it came from a rather busy place -- speaking in Universe terms.
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#59I recommend anyone interested read the paper which is available as a preprint from Nature (for the moment): goo.gl/cSsHoj (link shortened due to having an embedded access token). Some tantalizing points from the paper: - They constrained the aspect ratio in two dimensions to be 10:1:C, but the third dimension is unconstrained. Depending on which axis the object is rotating around, C could either be 1, or 20. Either o…
An object that has 3 different dimensions suffers from Polhode motion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polhode So maybe we can expect it to spin (and/or see it doesn't and speculate on the reasons for that)
To quench curiosity, I wonder if someone with more knowledge here could give the probability that this object is be spinning, stable, about its axis with smaller moment of inertia?
Re: The first known object to enter our solar system from deep space
#60I 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…
You might like the book Rendezvous with Rama.
I liked the whole Rama series. When I heard of the suggested dimensions of this object, I immediately thought of Rama.