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

Re:The first known object to enter our solar system from dee... by Tossrock on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @04:46AM (#15746835)

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

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Re:The first known object to enter our solar system from dee... by ldenneau on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @05:12AM (#15746937)

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.

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Re:The first known object to enter our solar system from dee... by Tossrock on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @05:21AM (#15746968)

Dr. Denneau, what an honor that you dropped by this comment thread! Congratulations on the publication, it's a truly groundbreaking discovery :) 10^16 is pretty mindbogglingly huge, but then again so is 4 light years...

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Re:The first known object to enter our solar system from dee... by soVeryTired on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @07:18AM (#15747366)

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.

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Re:The first known object to enter our solar system from dee... by jerf on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @11:32AM (#15749062)

If they're not being captured, they're just being perturbed by the sun a bit, not collected.

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Re:The first known object to enter our solar system from dee... by bmm6o on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @08:43PM (#15753501)

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

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