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Related papers: The New Astronomical Frontier of Interstellar Obje…

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The operation of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) marks a transformative moment in humanity's capacity to detect and characterize interstellar objects (ISOs). With projections indicating an increase…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2025-10-16 Omer Eldadi , Gershon Tenenbaum , Abraham Loeb

A rapid accumulation of observations and interpretation have followed in the wake of 1I `Oumuamua's passage through the inner Solar System. We briefly outline the consequences that this first detection of an interstellar asteroid implies…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-05-16 Darryl Seligman , Gregory Laughlin

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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-01-05 Walter Dehnen , Thomas O. Hands , Ralph Schönrich

Interstellar objects (ISOs), the parent population of 1I/Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, are abundant in the interstellar medium of the Milky Way. This means that the interstellar medium, including molecular cloud regions, has three components:…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-11-24 Susanne Pfalzner , Dylan Paterson , Michele T. Bannister , Simon Portegies Zwart

The recent observation of interstellar objects, 1I/Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov cross the solar system opened new opportunities for planetary science and planetary defense. As the first confirmed objects originating outside of the solar system,…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2020-02-05 Ravi teja Nallapu , Yinan Xu , Abraham Marquez , Tristan Schuler , Jekan Thangavelautham

The earliest confirmed interstellar object, `Oumuamua, was discovered in the Solar System by Pan-STARRS in 2017, allowing for a calibration of the abundance of interstellar objects of its size $\sim 100\;$ m. This was followed by the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-09-01 Amir Siraj , Abraham Loeb

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…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2019-10-15 Piotr Guzik , Michał Drahus , Krzysztof Rusek , Wacław Waniak , Giacomo Cannizzaro , Inés Pastor-Marazuela

The recent discovery of the first confirmed Interstellar Objects (ISOs) passing through the Solar System on clearly hyperbolic objects opens the potential for near term ISO missions, either to the two known objects, or to similar objects…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2020-07-27 T. Marshall Eubanks , Jean Schneider , Andreas M. Hein , Adam Hibberd , Robert Kennedy

The first interstellar object, `Oumuamua, was discovered in the Solar System by Pan-STARRS in 2017, allowing for a calibration of the impact rate of interstellar meteors of its size $\sim 100\;$m. The discovery of CNEOS 2014-01-08 allowed…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-04-18 Amir Siraj , Abraham Loeb

The previous decade saw the discovery of the first four known interstellar objects due to advances in astronomical viewing equipment. Future sky surveys with greater sensitivity will allow for more frequent detections of such objects,…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2023-03-28 Carson Ezell , Abraham Loeb

The detections of 1I/Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov within just two years demonstrate impressively that interstellar objects (ISOs) must be common in the Milky Way. Once released from their parent system, these ISOs travel for Gyr through…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-11-18 Susanne Pfalzner , Melvyn B. Davies , Giorgi Kokaia , Michele Bannister

Interstellar objects (ISOs) are small bodies that can travel through our solar system from other star systems. When present in our solar system, they represent an opportunity to study the properties and origins of these objects, as well as…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-07-25 Declan Mages , Davide Farnocchia , Benjamin Donitz

With the discovery of the third confirmed interstellar object (ISO), 3I/ATLAS, we have entered a new phase in the exploration of these long-predicted objects. Though confirmed discovery of ISOs is quite recent, their utility as targets 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,…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-09-09 Rainer Marquardt-Demen , Gongjie Li , James J. Wray

The Milky Way is thought to host a huge population of interstellar objects (ISOs), numbering approximately $10^{15}\mathrm{pc}^{-3}$ around the Sun, which are formed and shaped by a diverse set of processes ranging from planet formation to…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-11-16 Matthew J. Hopkins , Chris Lintott , Michele T. Bannister , J. Ted Mackereth , John C. Forbes

We derived 90% confidence limits (CL) on the interstellar number density ($\rho_{IS}^{CL}$) of interstellar objects (ISO; comets and asteroids) as a function of the slope of their size-frequency distribution and limiting absolute magnitude.…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2017-03-08 Toni Engelhardt , Robert Jedicke , Peter Veres , Alan Fitzsimmons , Larry Denneau , Ed Beshore , Bonnie Meinke

We modeled the trajectories of material ejected from 20 nearby debris disk stars, including Epsilon Eridani (Ran), Vega, Fomalhaut, and Beta Pictoris, within a simulated Milky Way potential in order to quantify their contribution to the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2026-02-24 Cole R. Gregg , Paul A. Wiegert

The first large interstellar object discovered near Earth, `Oumuamua, showed half a dozen anomalies relative to comets or asteroids in the Solar system. All natural-origin interpretations of the Oumuamua anomalies contemplated objects of a…

Popular Physics · Physics 2022-12-14 Abraham Loeb

In this work we investigate the orbital distribution of interstellar objects (ISOs), observable by the future wide-field National Science Foundation Vera C. Rubin Observatory (VRO). We generate synthetic population of ISOs and simulate…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-05-27 Dusan Marceta , Bojan Novakovic

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is expected to increase interstellar object (ISO) detections from a few over the past decade to potentially one per few months, demanding a systematic classification scheme. We present the Loeb Scale, formally…

Popular Physics · Physics 2025-08-14 Omer Eldadi , Gershon Tenenbaum , Abraham Loeb