What is a simple lucecita that moves on the screen for astronomers is the news of the year. At the end of this week, like Aldiario.es Advanced, telescopes around the world were recorded in one of these lights, which turned out to be a new comet from the limits of the solar system, which they already baptized as 3I/Atlas, the third an attacker Cosmic, which we found after an asteroid Oumuamua (2017) and Comet 2i/Borisov (2019).
These mysterious objects move in the darkness of the cosmic vacuum for millions of years, gravitational bouncing from one system to another as balls in the machine PinballWhile from time to time, one of them is not at full speed in the solar system, loaded with information on how heavenly material is produced thereAnd shoot our imagination.
In 2017, when this first interstellar object called Pure, called Oumuamua, was discovered, the astronomers saw it bounce And to accelerate more than expected, which revealed speculation about the possibility of being an alien ship. Many of the media and a prestigious researcher who wanted to attract attention, for example, Avi Loga, went crazy with the subject, although it was shown that there were much fewer fantastic explanations.
These objects are the result of genuine carambola among stars and at the same time are lost ties, dream traffic objects and contact between distant planetary systems
Josep Maria Tigo
– Researcher at the CSIC/IEEC Institute of Cosmic Sciences
After the passage of Borisov in 2019, the air snakes with characteristics, more similar to thousands that rotate around our sun, the water calmed down. And the new i3/Atlas, with a much larger number of comet than a spaceship, returns us to the path of sanity, although there are many scientific unknown to solve the same exciting. “These objects are the result of genuine carambola among stars and at the same time are lost ties, objects of dreaming and contacts between distant planetary systems,” says Josep Maria Tigo, a researcher at the CSIC/IEEC space. “Explaining their origin and nature, we learn from the processes that arose them.”
Like mosquitoes on windshield
Our telescopes can see these bodies only when they are large enough or close enough to reflect sunlight. Two characteristics betray them: hyperbolic orbit, separated from our star and devilish speed, much larger than the rest of the inhabitants of our region. “These objects abandoned their system, and for this they have reached the minimum exhaust gas rate, which allows them to abandon the gravitational influence of their star,” says Jose Maria Madedo, researcher of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia.
This last object, first discovered by telescopes of the Atlas system in Chile, is launched about 68 kilometers per second (about 250,000 km/h). “Speed that is very similar to the fact that there would be a body that penetrated into the solar system approaching the sun, although it is now far away, at the height of Jupiter,” says Madido.
Since the Tadeus Observatory, the Javier Limandro team from the Astrophysical Institute of the Canary Islands (IAC), followed the 3I/Atlas route from the first minute, and his team and his team are already getting very interesting information: this point, which is moving on the screen, is actually a huge cloud of gas and dust, about 25,000 km in length and 22.400 km in width, which remains in width, which remains in width, which remains in width, which remains in width, which remains in width. alliance. The tail right behind our gaze. “In this case, he extends backWith which we cannot measure its size, ”the scientist explains.” It is like a desire to measure the length of the car that we see ahead. When it happens closer, and let’s look at it to the side, You can do. ”
“Both Boriso and Oumuamua were quite small,” recalls Julia de Leon, Astrophysics IAC as an asteroid. “Despite the fact that there is still a lot of uncertainty, it seems that it would be a fairly large memorable core, above a kilometer.” This does not necessarily mean that we will give us more information, he warns, but the conclusion is very promising. “Indeed, Flipant is that we found three in such a short time, because they are tiny, and the space is huge: it is like finding a mosquito in the center of the Pacific Ocean.”
They come to everything chestnut, because in fact we go to all of the chestnut. As if we were on the way with a mistake that adheres to us on the windshield
Javier Likandro
– Researcher of the Astrophysical Institute of the Canary Islands (IAC)
At the speed of our meeting, the Lycandro relatives. “They come to the whole chestnut, because in reality we go to the whole chestnut,” he says. “As if we were on the road with a mistake that sticks to us on the windshield. It is enough that these objects avoid their stars and remain wandering in the interstellar space. If we just pass by, we will find ourselves. ” “The solar system is moving,” adds Rene Duffard, an IAA-CSIC asteroid expert. “The sun and all its companions revolve around the galaxy, and in this movement it can be normal for the system to get ahead of the material formed and expelled in other stars.”
Planetary garbage
Where does these mysterious objects come from? We know that from physics in high school, that the body that receives an impulse in a vacuum can potentially travel forever so that they can be very old and come is a guess, although the main candidates are the closest stars.
“In the solar system, most asteroids occupy an area that we know how asteroid belts and ice bodies, the parents of comets occupy other regions in the external zone, such as the ORT -OBO,” says Likandro. “We study similar structures in other stars where you cannot see individual comets and asteroids, but you can see the ring in which these objects occur.”
Scientists believe that these objects can proceed from structures similar to our Oort cloud, and that many educational systems produce these Bricks Primigenios in his way. “It seems that interstellar bodies found to this day come from stars located on a thin galactic disk, possibly from young stars that suffer from internal dynamic restructuring processes by gravitational dispersion in the corresponding Ort clouds,” the wheat explains. “There are models that calculate that each star was supposed to throw about five terrestrial masses in the form of planetal,” says Eva Willaver, Astrophysics and Deputy Director of IAC.
There are models that calculate that each star had to throw about five ground masses in the form of a planetary
Eva Willaver
– Astrophysics and Deputy Director IAC
“As part of the evolution of our own solar system, when a small object, such as an asteroid or comet, is close to the planet or the sun itself, can be excluded from the system,” Daffard notes. “If this phenomenon were carried out in our solar system, it could also go to others. Just as there are wandering planets that do not rotate around a single star, or because of the fact that they were excluded from their stars, or because they formed AloneThere may also be free items that are not related to other stars. ”
The astronomer and disseminator Javier Armenia recalls that we have already witnessed one of these exiles in our own system. “The Bowel Comet, discovered in 1980, went to Jupiter and accelerated over the speed of exhaust gases to the interstellar space,” he says. There are also several objects that are now in sunny orbit, and that they are suspected that they arrived like tramps and remained on live With nasostruses captured by their gravity.
Perhaps these comets survive of special places that have created these balls with a ping-pong that can go through huge distances and reach other systems
Javier Armenia
– Astronomer and distribution
For Armenia, the output of the third object of this type is fascinating, taking into account everything that we have already learned from the previous two. “Both went near the sun without fragments, which tells us about the sequence of material and could explain that they came here,” he says. “And the high content of carbon monoxide in the Borusov comet led to the assumption that it will be formed in the clouds of ultrafrias of smaller stars, such as red dwarfs,” he adds. “Perhaps these comets survive in very special places that have created these balls with a ping-pong that can travel with huge distances and reach other systems,” he will think.
Another alarming reality lies in the fact that we will never know with confidence what kind of specific place each of these asteroids or comets comes. “You can speculate a little out of the path, where do they come from, from which star or from which area, but you cannot reliably determine in the future,” says Likandro. “After bouncing from one system to another, the initial trajectory has nothing to do, and it is impossible to determine which place they continue.”
Scientific fiction mission
On the number of objects that we can detect thanks to planetary surveillance systems, such as Atlas, experts are very optimistic. “We have been in a few years, and this was due to the fact that monitoring programs close to the ground have expanded and study better,” says Madido. “Of course, in the past we missed many of these objects and, carrying three in such a small space of time, we can appreciate that they are not so rare.”
The premiere of tools such as the giant camera of the Vera C. Rubin observatory in Chile, promises to expand the catalog and add between one and a dozen from these interstellar travelers a year. “Rubin comes much deeper and will see much weaker objects, so we can see the bodies that go further or which are smaller,” says Likandro.
Another great promise is a mission Comet CatchIN ESA, planned for 2029, intends to place the attached probe at the Sun point in Lagrange, expecting one of these objects to follow it and carefully study it. Of course, we will not find an extraterrestrial civilization that travels inside, as it was in the novel Appointment with the frameBut the moment will be equally exciting and more stringent, like Avi’s forehead and his followers.
The lesson that this conclusion leaves us reflects Eve Willaver in the fact that we move in a galactic environment, where the interaction between stars and these stars is often shared by the material with which their planets are formed, and we ourselves. “The idea of being lonely and isolated,” he concludes, “but these pieces of stone, with disappointed planets traveling to the immediate extent of the space, remind us that the opposite is happening.”
