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Re:Another Interstellar Object Detected in the Solar System by davidmurdoch on Wednesday September 11, 2019 @10:12PM (#20947098)
It it not at all possible for an interstellar object to be captured into a stable solar orbit?
Re:Another Interstellar Object Detected in the Solar System by greglindahl on Wednesday September 11, 2019 @10:50PM (#20947376)
Not without interacting with a 3rd body, such as Jupiter.
Re:Another Interstellar Object Detected in the Solar System by ars on Wednesday September 11, 2019 @11:20PM (#20947595)
Or, apparently, if it crosses an event horizon, although I've never properly understood how that works. (Explanations I've found typically just say: "All paths from a black hole are toward the black hole."
Re:Another Interstellar Object Detected in the Solar System by greglindahl on Wednesday September 11, 2019 @11:42PM (#20947727)
Most things flying towards a black hole don't cross the event horizon thanks to angular momentum.

Stars tend to get torn apart, go into the accretion disk, and then eventually fall in. But we don't have a big black hole in the solar system.

Re:Another Interstellar Object Detected in the Solar System by DavidSJ on Thursday September 12, 2019 @01:19AM (#20948254)
For present purposes the Newtonian approximation suffices, and in Newtonian gravity there are no black holes and no event horizons.
Re:Another Interstellar Object Detected in the Solar System by lojack on Wednesday September 11, 2019 @10:28PM (#20947220)
Captured into a stable orbit, sure, but it will never have an eccentricity of 0 (circular). The limit can approach zero, but will never be equal to it. Even the planets don’t have a circular orbit FWIW.
Re:Another Interstellar Object Detected in the Solar System by _kst_ on Thursday September 12, 2019 @01:08AM (#20948194)
An interstellar object cannot be captured into a stable orbit unless some other force (such as Jupiter's gravity) acts on it.

Orbits are time-symmetric, so an interstellar object being captured into a stable elliptical orbit would be equivalent to an object in a stable elliptical orbit escaping the Solar System (again, ignoring other influences).

Re:Another Interstellar Object Detected in the Solar System by tempestn on Thursday September 12, 2019 @02:41AM (#20948666)
Is that true of comets as well? It seems conceivable to me that the sun could spin it around such that the comet's off-gassing could reduce its speed and allow it to be captured. Obviously unlikely, and highly dependent on conditions (in particular incoming velocity) but possible.
Re:Another Interstellar Object Detected in the Solar System by lojack on Thursday September 12, 2019 @09:52AM (#20951431)
If you're ignoring all other influences then there is no such thing as interstellar objects. By definition, every object in a two body system are gravationally bound to each other.
Re:Another Interstellar Object Detected in the Solar System by ravar on Thursday September 12, 2019 @12:57PM (#20953707)
This is so wrong. Objects can have enough energy that will become arbitrary far apart as time passes. In no sense are the objects bound together in that case.