Prospects for Backtracing 1I/'Oumuamua and Future Interstellar Objects
- Creators
- Zhang, Qicheng
Abstract
1I/'Oumuamua is the first of likely many small bodies of extrasolar origin to be found in the solar system. These interstellar objects (ISOs) are hypothesized to have formed in extrasolar planetary systems prior to being ejected into interstellar space and subsequently arriving at the solar system. This paper discusses necessary considerations for tracing ISOs back to their parent stars via trajectory analysis and places approximate limits on doing so. Results indicate that the capability to backtrace ISOs beyond the immediate solar neighborhood is presently constrained by the quality of stellar astrometry, a factor poised for significant improvement with upcoming Gaia data releases. Nonetheless, prospects for linking 1I or any other ISO to their respective parent stars appear unfavorable on an individual basis due to gravitational scattering from random stellar encounters, which limit traceability to the past few tens of millions of years. These results, however, do not preclude the possibility of occasional success, particularly after considering the potential for observational bias favoring the discovery of younger ISOs, together with the anticipated rise in the ISO discovery rate under forthcoming surveys.
Additional Information
© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2017 November 30; revised 2017 December 18; accepted 2017 December 19; published 2018 January 3. The author thanks Quan-Zhi Ye, Shreyas Vissapragada, Yayaati Chachan, and Konstantin Batygin for insightful discussions on the potential origins of 1I. Special thanks to an anonymous referee whose comments and suggestions helped improve this manuscript. This research has made use of data and/or services provided by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, and by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Solar System Dynamics Group. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular, the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. Software: Matplotlib (Hunter 2007), NumPy (Walt et al. 2011), Python (van Rossum 1995).Attached Files
Published - Zhang_2018_ApJL_852_L13.pdf
Submitted - 1712.08059.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 84056
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20180103-112110680
- Gaia Multilateral Agreement
- Created
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2018-01-03Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field