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Astronomy

Naming An Interstellar Visitor

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
October 29, 2017

Something Visited Our Solar System From Interstellar Space, NASA
“A small, recently discovered asteroid — or perhaps a comet — appears to have originated from outside the solar system, coming from somewhere else in our galaxy. If so, it would be the first “interstellar object” to be observed and confirmed by astronomers. This unusual object — for now designated A/2017 U1 — is less than a quarter-mile (400 meters) in diameter and is moving remarkably fast. Astronomers are urgently working to point telescopes around the world and in space at this notable object.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

12 responses to “Naming An Interstellar Visitor”

  1. Michael Kaplan says:
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    Great idea!

  2. Don A Nelson says:
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    If we had a planetary defense system that could detect these deep space visitors and a rapid deploy launch system we could rendezvous with them and place science packages on them to learn more about deep space…instead we got SLS.

    • George Purcell says:
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      I suspect the delta-v requirements for a direct trajectory rendezvous with Rama would be rather extreme.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        That’s an understatement.

      • fcrary says:
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        I’d say that’s correct, but just for the sake of it, I checked the numbers. Depending on the time of launch (orbital phase of the Earth), I get 42 to 70 km/s at infinity or 36 to 64 km/s from low Earth orbit. That’s to match velocity with the outbound, asymptotic velocity of the object, not to close and land.

        On the other hand, in Clarke’s novel, the first close-up observations with Rama were from an unmanned flyby. Doing something similar with a A/2017 U1-like object would probably have an encounter velocity similar to the above numbers (42-70 km/s.) For comparison, the Giotto/Halley encounter was at 68 km/s, and the fictional encounter from Clarke’s novel was 55 km/s (described as 200,000 km/hour.) So that’s certainly viable. As a footnote, Clarke greatly underestimated how much you could learn from such an encounter, even compared to Giotto which flew only 14 years after the book was published. Although he did include the very modern idea of small subspacecraft to image all sides of the target.

        In fact, people have suggested the idea of a such a flyby of fresh or young comets. Those are of interest because they haven’t passed through perihelion (or at least not many times) and are more pristine and primordial in composition. But they are typically not discovered until less than a year before perihelion. That’s not time to put together a mission. So there are suggestions to build a small (cheap) spacecraft in advance, put it in storage, and wait until a target appears to launch it.

  3. fcrary says:
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    I like it. And, as far as formal naming rules go, it also has the virtue of being unused. At least, the Minor Planets Center doesn’t list an asteroid by that name. The down side is that this thing doesn’t fit into any of the IAU’s existing categories.

    If we call it an asteroid (observations show no sign of a coma, so it isn’t a comet) then all you’d need to do is get the discoverer to propose the name. But if it’s an asteroid, the IAU would want a well-determined orbit, one good enough that “the position can be reliably predicted far into the future.” The usually want observations on four or more oppositions for that. Which makes very little sense for something on a hyperbolic orbit. I’d say you should get the discover to propose the name, and give the appropriate IAU committees something to do with their time…

    • rb1957 says:
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      maybe, to borrow a geological term, call these things “erratics” (after latin errare, “to wander”)

  4. Fred says:
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    That was a rather boring book.

  5. MarcNBarrett says:
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    I see I am not the only person to think of that series of books when I read about this in a general news article on Google News.

  6. Joe Denison says:
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    It would definitely be an apt name for the body as well as an honor for an iconic author. Its got my vote.

  7. Ben Russell-Gough says:
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    Just to be different, I nominate ‘Hyperbole’ (for what little that’s worth). Not just to describe the orbit but also the Internet storm it’s discovery precipitated!

  8. Bill Housley says:
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    Hmmm…my interest in this event is more along the lines of a statistical data point. When were we first able to notice every occurence of a similar event to this one? I don’t like “Oh look, that’s a new…(whoosh)…one” asteroidal events.