English

Capture of interstellar objects: a source of long-period comets

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2020-01-08 v2

Abstract

We simulate the passage through the Sun-Jupiter system of interstellar objects (ISOs) similar to 1I/`Oumuamua or 2I/Borisov. Capture of such objects is rare and overwhelmingly from low incoming speeds onto orbits akin to those of known long-period comets. This suggests that some of these comets could be of extra-solar origin, in particular inactive ones. Assuming ISOs follow the local stellar velocity distribution, we infer a volume capture rate of 0.051au3yr10.051\,\mathrm{au}^3 \mathrm{yr}^{-1}. Current estimates for orbital lifetimes and space densities then imply steady-state captured populations of 102\sim10^2 comets and 105\sim10^5 `Oumuamua-like rocks, of which 0.033% are within 6au at any time.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1910.06338,
  title  = {Capture of interstellar objects: a source of long-period comets},
  author = {Tom Hands and Walter Dehnen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.06338},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

R2 v1 2026-06-23T11:43:22.444Z