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originally posted by: 38181
Does anyone have a theory on how this object got its speed? That's incredibly fast. What's the speed of Voyager 1 and 2?
Going on a limb here, but IF it is a probe, maybe the designers make it shut down during travel (tumbles because who cares or to keep it camouflaged as a asteroid) then wakes up when it nears planets of interest?
I don't know but I find this object pretty interesting.
It has been hopping from one solar system to another for millions of years.
originally posted by: Cauliflower
According to theorists:
It has been hopping from one solar system to another for millions of years.
Which might mean it is traveling too fast to be trapped by a typical solar system gravity well.
Waiting for more clues, you would think they would have done an analysis of the density that might hint at its origin.
They believe the Earths moon was the result of an early collision, the moon being too massive to reach escape velocity.
All I've heard so far is that this asteroid does not reflect more than 6% of the probing radiation.
originally posted by: Cauliflower
a reply to: JimOberg
If the orbital path was tracked with sufficient accuracy the mass should be known.
originally posted by: JimOberg
originally posted by: Cauliflower
a reply to: JimOberg
If the orbital path was tracked with sufficient accuracy the mass should be known.
How?
originally posted by: Maverick7
Any "probe" will likely be nano in size. It's just more efficient.
The resulting dataset provides dense coverage from discovery to 2018 January 2, when the object became fainter than V≈27 at a heliocentric distance of 2.9 au.