Date: 17/04/2019 15:51:21
From: dv
ID: 1376341
Subject: Interstellar meteor

The first meteor to hit Earth from interstellar space — and the second known interstellar visitor overall — may have just been discovered, a new study finds.

Interstellar meteors may be common, and could potentially help life travel from star to star, researchers added.

The first known visitor from interstellar space, a cigar-shaped object named ‘Oumuamua, was detected in 2017. Scientists deduced the origins of the 1,300-foot-long (400 meters) object from its speed and trajectory, which suggests it may have come from another star, or perhaps two.

Related: ‘Oumuamua: Our 1st Known Interstellar Visitor Explained in Photos

Avi Loeb, the chair of astronomy at Harvard University, noted that one would expect smaller interstellar visitors would be far more common, with some of them perhaps colliding with Earth often enough to be noticeable.

Now Loeb and study lead author Amir Siraj, an undergraduate student at Harvard University, suggested they may have detected one such interstellar meteor, the solar system’s second known interstellar visitor

The scientists analyzed the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies’ catalog of meteor events detected by U.S. government sensors. They focused on the fastest meteors, because a high speed suggests a meteor is potentially not gravitationally bound to the sun and thus may originate from outside the solar system.

The researchers identified a meteor about 3 feet (0.9 meters) wide that was detected on Jan. 8, 2014, at an altitude of 11.6 miles (18.7 kilometers) over a point near Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island in the South Pacific. Its high speed of about 134,200 mph (216,000 km/h) and its trajectory suggested it came from outside the solar system, the scientists said.

“We can use the atmosphere of the Earth as the detector for these meteors, which are too small to otherwise see,” Loeb told Space.com.

The meteor’s velocity suggested it received a gravitational boost during its journey, perhaps from the deep interior of a planetary system, or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way.

“You can imagine that if these meteors were ejected from the habitable zone of a star, they could help transfer life from one planetary system to another,” Loeb said.

https://www.space.com/second-interstellar-object-a-meteor-discovery.html

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Date: 17/04/2019 15:55:50
From: Bubblecar
ID: 1376343
Subject: re: Interstellar meteor

I wonder whether it would be possible to differentiate local and interstellar meteorites purely on the basis of their composition.

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Date: 17/04/2019 15:56:22
From: Cymek
ID: 1376345
Subject: re: Interstellar meteor

dv said:


The first meteor to hit Earth from interstellar space — and the second known interstellar visitor overall — may have just been discovered, a new study finds.

Interstellar meteors may be common, and could potentially help life travel from star to star, researchers added.

The first known visitor from interstellar space, a cigar-shaped object named ‘Oumuamua, was detected in 2017. Scientists deduced the origins of the 1,300-foot-long (400 meters) object from its speed and trajectory, which suggests it may have come from another star, or perhaps two.

Related: ‘Oumuamua: Our 1st Known Interstellar Visitor Explained in Photos

Avi Loeb, the chair of astronomy at Harvard University, noted that one would expect smaller interstellar visitors would be far more common, with some of them perhaps colliding with Earth often enough to be noticeable.

Now Loeb and study lead author Amir Siraj, an undergraduate student at Harvard University, suggested they may have detected one such interstellar meteor, the solar system’s second known interstellar visitor

The scientists analyzed the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies’ catalog of meteor events detected by U.S. government sensors. They focused on the fastest meteors, because a high speed suggests a meteor is potentially not gravitationally bound to the sun and thus may originate from outside the solar system.

The researchers identified a meteor about 3 feet (0.9 meters) wide that was detected on Jan. 8, 2014, at an altitude of 11.6 miles (18.7 kilometers) over a point near Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island in the South Pacific. Its high speed of about 134,200 mph (216,000 km/h) and its trajectory suggested it came from outside the solar system, the scientists said.

“We can use the atmosphere of the Earth as the detector for these meteors, which are too small to otherwise see,” Loeb told Space.com.

The meteor’s velocity suggested it received a gravitational boost during its journey, perhaps from the deep interior of a planetary system, or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way.

“You can imagine that if these meteors were ejected from the habitable zone of a star, they could help transfer life from one planetary system to another,” Loeb said.

https://www.space.com/second-interstellar-object-a-meteor-discovery.html

It was certainly motoring along

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Date: 17/04/2019 15:56:34
From: dv
ID: 1376346
Subject: re: Interstellar meteor

Bubblecar said:


I wonder whether it would be possible to differentiate local and interstellar meteorites purely on the basis of their composition.

Quite

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