English

Oort cloud perturbations as a source of hyperbolic Earth impactors

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2024-05-29 v3

Abstract

The observation of interstellar objects 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov suggests the existence of a larger population of smaller projectiles that impact our planet with unbound orbits. We analyze an asteroidal grazing meteor (FH1) recorded by the Finnish Fireball Network on October 23, 2022. FH1 displayed a likely hyperbolic orbit lying on the ecliptic plane with an estimated velocity excess of \sim0.7 km\,s1^{-1} at impact. FH1 may either be an interstellar object, indicating a high-strength bias in this population, or an Oort cloud object, which would reinforce migration-based solar system models. Furthermore, under the calculated uncertainties, FH1 could potentially be associated with the passage of Scholz's binary star system. Statistical evaluation of uncertainties in the CNEOS database and study of its hyperbolic fireballs reveals an anisotropic geocentric radiant distribution and low orbital inclinations, challenging the assumption of a randomly incoming interstellar population. Orbital integrations suggest that the event on March 9, 2017 (IM2) from CNEOS may have experienced gravitational perturbation during the Scholz fly-by, contingent upon velocity overestimation within the expected range. These findings suggest that apparent interstellar meteors may, in fact, be the result of accelerated meteoroid impacts caused by close encounters with massive objects within or passing through our solar system.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.12673,
  title  = {Oort cloud perturbations as a source of hyperbolic Earth impactors},
  author = {Eloy Peña-Asensio and Jaakko Visuri and Josep M. Trigo-Rodríguez and Hector Socas-Navarro and Maria Gritsevich and Markku Siljama and Albert Rimola},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.12673},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in Icarus