[ad_1]
A new document suggests that there may be 19 asteroids, all part of the Centaurus family, that did not come from our own solar system. If this were proven to be true, it would mean that we have ancient material formed around an orbiting alien star in our own solar system.
Centaurs are some of the most interesting space rocks in our solar system. A centaur is formally defined as a small body that orbits between Jupiter and Neptune, and that crosses the orbit of at least one giant planet. They sit out of the reach of the Jupiter Trojans, but they are much closer to the sun than the scattered disk or the Kuiper Belt. The fact that they cross the orbit of at least one giant planet means that centaurs do not have stable orbits beyond a time scale of a few million years.
The orbits of the centaurs, compared to the outer planets, the objects of the Kuiper Belt and the scattered disk. Image from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Centaurs are so named because they demonstrate the characteristics of asteroids and comets. The first Centaur discovered, 2060 Chiron, was found in 1977. Initially, it lit up 75 percent and developed a cometary coma, with a tail detected in 1993. But Chiron is approximately 220 km in diameter, much larger than a nucleus. typical kite, and It may have a ring system, something that was never observed around a kite. What is it called half comet, half asteroid? A comeroid Centaur, obviously.
The fact that a Centaur’s orbit around the sun is not stable is one of its defining characteristics, which is where this new document comes in. According to the researchers, there are 19 Centaurs whose orbits and inclinations within our solar system can only be explained if they did not originate here at all. Objects in unstable orbits around the sun follow one of these three results: they assume stable orbits around a planet or our sun, fall into the gravity well of a planet or the sun, or are ejected into the interstellar medium.
Prior to this study, only one potential extrasolar Centaur had been identified, 514107 Kaʻepaokaʻawela. The idea that there could be 19 of these objects out of a total population of 44,000 -> 10M is not crazy, nor is the idea that our solar system could have captured such asteroids in the relatively recent past. We recently detected two comets of interstellar origin: Comet Borisov and ‘Oumuamua in the shape of a cigar.
The authors, Namouni and Morais, analyzed the centaurs’ orbits with particularly inclined orbits relative to the plane of the ecliptic (the plane in which the major planets and asteroids move). They found 19 objects whose orbits cannot be explained if they started life as objects that formed within our solar system. If they are captured space rocks, on the other hand, their orbits are perfectly explainable. It is also not clear that the 19 objects are from the same expulsion event.
Namouni and Morais do not claim that their gravitational interaction simulation proves that centaurs are extrasolar traps. But if they are, it would mean that there are pieces from another solar system trapped within ours. Such material could be traced back to the formation of the Sun (if it was captured near the beginning of our solar system) or it could have been captured in the last few million years. The dinosaurs, despite their many achievements, were absolutely terrible in leaving astronomical records.
Again, there is a precedent for this type of theory. We have already located two “star brothers” of Sol – HD 162826 (110 LY away, F8V star, 4.5B years) and HD 186302 (184 LY away, G2V star, 4.57B years). Our sun is a G2V star believed to have been lit 4,600 years ago. It is clear that there was a great exchange at that time; The protoplanetary disk of the solar system was clearly strewn with heavy metals by a supernova that exploded nearby while our planets were forming. The explosion was not close enough to disperse our disk, but it left a telltale signature that we can still collect.
The best thing about these findings is that it means we could collect information from asteroids that did not originate here. It doesn’t really matter if they represent a 4.5B-year-old capture of a long-lost star brother or if these Centaurs are random space rocks like Borisov or ‘Oumuamua. No matter where they came from or how long ago we were formed, we would learn a great deal about conditions in other parts of the galaxy, and could learn them in a matter of a few decades, rather than the tens of thousands of years that are currently required. to send an unmanned probe to another solar system.
That’s an excellent reason to focus some probes on these Centaurs. Anytime there is the possibility of collecting information in decades that would otherwise take tens of thousands of years, it is worth exploring.
Featured image from NASA
Now read:
[ad_2]
