Related papers: Prospects for Backtracing 1I/`Oumuamua and Future …
The discovery of 1I/2017 U1 ('Oumuamua) has provided the first glimpse of a planetesimal born in another planetary system. This interloper exhibits a variable colour within a range that is broadly consistent with local small bodies such as…
Observed hyperbolic minor bodies might have an interstellar origin, but they can be natives of the Solar system as well. Fly-bys with the known planets or the Sun may result in the hyperbolic ejection of an originally bound minor body; in…
Interstellar objects (ISOs) can become gravitationally bound to the solar system, enabling multiple observations. If these bound ISOs exist, they provide valuable opportunities to generalize models of planetesimal formation, composition,…
With the recent discoveries of interstellar objects `Oumuamua and Borisov traversing the solar system, understanding the dynamics of interstellar objects is more pressing than ever. These detections have highlighted the possibility that…
The discovery of the third interstellar object (ISO), 3I/ATLAS (`3I'), provides a rare chance to directly observe a small body from another Solar System. Studying its chemistry and dynamics will add to our understanding of how the processes…
At present, there exists no consensus in the astronomical community regarding either the bulk composition or the formation mechanism for the interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 ('Oumuamua). With the goal of assessing the merits of the various…
The discovery of the first interstellar asteroid, 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua), has opened a new era for research on interstellar objects. In this paper, we study the rotational dynamics of interstellar asteroids (ISAs) of irregular shapes moving…
The chance discovery of the first interstellar minor body, 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua), indicates that we may have been visited by such objects in the past and that these events may repeat in the future. Unfortunately, minor bodies following…
Interstellar comets penetrating through the Solar System had been anticipated for decades. The discovery of asteroidal-looking 'Oumuamua was thus a huge surprise and a puzzle. Furthermore, the physical properties of the 'first scout' turned…
The recently discovered first interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua) has brightness that varies by a factor of 10, a range greater than that of any Solar System asteroid, a spectrum characteristic of Type D asteroids, and no evidence of…
In two recent papers published in MNRAS, Namouni and Morais (2018, 2020) claimed evidence for the interstellar origin of some small Solar System bodies, including i) objects in retrograde co-orbital motion with the giant planets, and ii)…
The local detection rate of interstellar objects can allow for estimations of the total number of similar objects bound by the Milky Way thin disk. If interstellar objects of artificial origin are discovered, the estimated total number of…
If interstellar objects originate in protoplanetary disks, they can be used to calibrate the fraction of mass that such disks eject. The discoveries of interstellar objects 1I/`Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, taken together with rogue planets…
The first known interstellar object, 1I/2017 U1 'Oumuamua, displayed such unusual properties that its origin remains a subject of much debate. We propose that 'Oumuamua's properties could be explained as those of a fractal dust aggregate (a…
We investigate the trapping of interstellar objects during the early stages of star and planet formation. Our results show a very wide range of possible values that will be narrowed down as the population of interstellar objects becomes…
Light curve observations of a recently discovered interstellar object 1I/`Oumuamua suggest that this object has an extremely elongated shape with the axis ratio 0.3 or smaller. Planetesimal collisions can produce irregular shapes including…
Capture of interstellar objects (ISOs) into the Solar system is dominated by ISOs with asymptotic incoming speeds $v_\infty<4\,$km\,s$^{-1}$. The capture rate is proportional to the ISO phase-space density in the Solar vicinity and does not…
1I/'Oumuamua, formerly known as A/2017 U1, is a sizable body currently passing through the solar system. It is generally considered to be a rocky asteroid-like object that came from another planetary system in the Milky Way. We point out…
We explore what may be learned by close encounters between extrasolar minor bodies like `Oumuamua and the Sun. These encounters may yield strong constraints on the bulk composition and possible origin of `Oumuamua-like objects. We find that…
`Oumuamua and Borisov were the first two interstellar objects confirmed in the Solar system. The upcoming commencement of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space of Time (LSST) will enhance greatly the discovery rate of…