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The phenomenon of 1I/'Oumuamua introduced the interstellar object (ISO) class of celestial body into the astronomical lexicon, those objects with heliocentric speeds clearly in excess of that required to parabolically escape the Solar…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-07-19 Adam Hibberd

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

We provide a calculation of Pan-STARRS' ability to detect objects similar to the interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 (hereafter 'Oumuamua), including the most detectable approach vectors and the effect of object size on detection efficiency.…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-03-08 Aaron Do , Michael A. Tucker , John Tonry

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…

In August 2019, a second interstellar object 2I/Borisov was discovered 2 years after the discovery of the first known interstellar object, 1I/'Oumuamua. Can we send a spacecraft to this object, using existing technologies? In this paper we…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2021-11-05 Adam Hibberd , Nikolaos Perakis , Andreas M. Hein

The upcoming Comet Interceptor mission involves a parking phase around the Sun-Earth L2 point before transferring to intercept the orbit of a long period comet, interstellar object or a back-up target in the form of a short-period comet.…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-08-28 Erik Vigren , Anders I. Eriksson , Niklas J. T. Edberg , Colin Snodgrass

The non-detection of a coma surrounding 1I/`Oumuamua, the first discovered interstellar object (ISO), has prompted a variety of hypotheses to explain its nongravitational acceleration. Given that forthcoming surveys are poised to identify…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-09-21 Samuel H. C. Cabot , Q. Daniel Wang , Darryl Z. Seligman

Stellar occultations have been used to search for Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud objects. We propose a search for interstellar objects based on the characteristic durations ($\sim 0.1 \mathrm{s}$) of their stellar occultation signals and high…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-03-04 Amir Siraj , Abraham Loeb

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

As part of NASA's mission to explore habitable planets orbiting nearby stars, this paper explores the detection and characterization capabilities of a 4-m space telescope plus 50-m starshade located at the Earth-Sun L2 point, a.k.a. the New…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-04 Margaret C. Turnbull , Tiffany Glassman , Aki Roberge , Webster Cash , Charley Noecker , Amy Lo , Brian Mason , Phil Oakley , John Bally

1I/`Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov are the first macroscopic interstellar objects to be detected in the solar system. Their discovery has triggered a tsunami of scientific interest regarding the physical properties, dynamics and origin of the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2024-07-10 David Jewitt

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…

Popular Physics · Physics 2023-04-26 Carson Ezell , Abraham Loeb

Natural (such as lunar) occultations have long been used to study sources on small angular scales, while coronographs have been used to study high contrast sources. We propose launching the Improved Resolution and Image Selection (IRIS)…

Astrophysics · Physics 2016-08-30 Glenn D. Starkman , Craig J Copi

The first interstellar objects, 1I/`Oumuamua, 2I/Borisov and 3I/ATLAS, were discovered over the past decade. We follow the trajectories of known interstellar objects in the gravitational potential of the Milky Way galaxy to constrain their…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-08-08 Shokhruz Kakharov , Abraham Loeb

The discovery of the first two macroscopic interstellar objects (ISOs) passing through the Solar System has opened entirely new perspectives in planetary science. The exploration of these objects offers a qualitatively new insight into the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-01-24 Dušan Marčeta

Interstellar Objects (ISO) passing through our Solar System offer a rare opportunity to probe the physical and chemical processes involved in solid body and planet formation in extrasolar systems. The main objective of our study is to…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-02-05 Bin Yang , Michael S. P. Kelley , Karen J. Meech , Jacqueline V. Keane , Silvia Protopapa , Schelte J. Bus

We calculate accretion mass of interstellar objects (ISOs) like `Oumuamua onto low-mass population III stars (Pop.~III survivors), and estimate surface pollution of Pop.~III survivors. An ISO number density estimated from the discovery of…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2018-07-18 Ataru Tanikawa , Takeru K. Suzuki , Yasuo Doi

I investigate the prospects for using the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) to measure the masses of nearby stars from their astrometric deflection of more distant sources, as originally suggested by Paczynski and by Miralda-Escude. I…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Andrew Gould

ESA has identified interferometry as one of the major goals of the Horizon 2000+ programme. Infrared interferometers are a highly sensitive astronomical instruments that enable us to observe terrestrial planets around nearby stars. In this…

Astrophysics · Physics 2016-08-16 M. Landgraf , R. Jehn , W. Flury , M. Fridlund , A. Karlsson , A. Léger

The first definite interstellar object observed in our solar system was discovered in October of 2017 and was subsequently designated 1I/'Oumuamua. In addition to its extrasolar origin, observations and analysis of this object indicate some…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2021-02-03 Adam Hibberd , Andreas M. Hein