1 Mio. interstellar objects from Alpha Centauri at the edge of the solar system
The Alpha Centauri star system is approaching the sun. Two researchers have determined how many objects from there have already reached us and could reach us.
Artist's impression of ʻOumuamua, the first interstellar celestial body discovered in the solar system
(Image: ESA/Hubble, NASA, ESO, M. Kornmesser)
At the edge of the solar system, there could be around one million interstellar celestial bodies with a diameter of at least 100 meters orbiting the sun that originally came from Alpha Centauri. Two Canadian researchers have determined this with the help of computer models. The double star system Alpha Centauri, which is just over four light years away, is a direct cosmic neighbor of Earth and is currently moving towards us. Therefore, significantly more celestial bodies are likely to arrive in the solar system in the coming decades.
Exchange of matter between star systems
As physicists Cole Gregg and Paul Wiegert from the University of Western Ontario explain in their research paper, we now know that interstellar objects can reach the solar system. Two such objects have been discovered so far: ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov. However, their exact origin and details of their path towards the sun are unknown. The two have therefore calculated how many such macroscopic objects could bridge the distance between our solar system and their nearest neighbor, based on current models of the loss rate of a star system.
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If Alpha Centauri were to lose as much material as is assumed for our solar system, then around one million larger objects would have to have reached the Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system. This population of comets, which has so far only been described theoretically, orbits the sun at an enormous distance. We would not be able to detect interstellar celestial bodies there. The probability of such an interstellar object from Alpha Centauri approaching the sun to less than 10 astronomical units (AU) – and thus becoming detectable – is around one in a million, according to the two.
While the information on the number of objects with Alpha Centauri as their origin far out at the edge of the solar system cannot currently be verified, the two also make another prediction. According to their calculations, around 10 detectable meteors in the Earth's atmosphere should come from the binary star system every year. This number should also increase tenfold over the next 28,000 years as Alpha Centauri gets closer and closer to us. Further research is now needed to understand the exchange of matter in our galaxy. The research paper is available on ArXiv and has been accepted for publication in the Planetary Science Journal.
(mho)
