About 7 Interstellar Objects Passing Through the Inner Solar System Every Year
AnonTechie writes:
There Should be About 7 Interstellar Objects Passing Through the Inner Solar System Every Year:
In October 19th, 2017, the first interstellar object ever detected flew past Earth on its way out of the Solar System. Less than two years later, a second object was detected, an easily-identified interstellar comet designated as 2I/Borisov. The appearance of these two objects verified earlier theoretical work that concluded that interstellar objects (ISOs) regularly enter our Solar System.
The question of how often this happens has been the subject of considerable research since then. According to new study led by researchers from the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is), roughly 7 ISOs enter our Solar System every year and follow predictable orbits while they are here. This research could allow us to send a spacecraft to rendezvous with one of these objects in the near future.
The research that describes these findings was conducted by multiple researchers from i4is, a non-profit organization dedicated to the realization of interstellar flight in the very near future. They were joined by researchers from the Florida Institute of Technology, Harvard's Initiative for Interstellar Studies (ITC), the University of Texas at Austin, the Technical University of Munich, and the Observatoire de Paris.
The study of 'Oumuamua in October of 2017 set off a revolution in astronomy and the study of celestial objects. Not only was this an object that had formed in another star system, but its arrival and detection implied a large population of such objects. The detection of 2I/Borisov in 2019 confirmed what many astronomers already suspected - that ISOs enter our Solar System on a pretty regular basis.
Very soon, we can expect an alien spaceship too.
Abstract and full article are available on the arXiv pre-print server.
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