The scientific world is taking care of the interstellar 3I/Atlas comet and photographing it with very powerful telescopes, but also studying it very seriously.
In this episode of the news, we will see the results of a study conducted by a Spanish and Swedish team, which used the probe data GAIA (Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics) dell’ESAlaunched in 2013 and arrived at the end of its mission in January of this year, after an extension since the end of 2022: over the years this probe has carried out astrometric measurements of very high precision on the stars of our galaxy, the Milky Way, generating a database of information relating to the position, brightness, parallax, proper motorcycle, radial speed of a number astronomical di place.
Using these precious information, the team calculated the motion of these stars back in time with simulations to see if by chance our comet had met some (from Neighbor on a cosmic scale) during his journey, obtaining a modification of his original trajectory.
The simulation went back in time not one ten o o hundred of years, but none other than up to 10 million years fa (10Myrdove Myr stands for Mega Year), but as we will see he did not provide expected results, for various reasons.
At this point I leave the word to the oramai known Evan Gough, of UniverseTodayand to his really interesting article, which as always I have translated so reasonedbut never using what is called Intelligence Artificial.
Where does the interstellate 3i/Atlas comet come from?
Table of Contents
(editor’s note: of this article I jump the introductory part where Evan explains who and what is the interstellar comet, with news that you can find in my articles on the subject, listed On this page of the siteas I publish them).
None of the observations from the ground and space, not even thanks to the powerful spatial telescopes, will be able to tell us where the comet comes from: but another mission, at the end after so many years, can help us determine the path followed by the star traveler.
In the new research, published on Arxiv At this addressthe Spanish/Swedish team, led by Xabier Pérez Couto (of the Department of Computer Science and Information Technologies of the Universidade from Coruña, in Galicia) has precisely exploited the information available to the scientific community of the Gaia probe.
The researchers write that “the unusual speed and the active commercial nature make 3I/Atlas a key element among the galactic population of frozen planetesimi”. In fact, the gases released by hand that approaches the sun to form a tail, are clues to its composition in other areas of the galaxy. But both the hair and the tail cannot tell us what the path was to come to us.
The authors add that “Cinematica is the key to identifying the ISOs (Interstellar Objects), since their trajectory shows a direct evidence of extractor origin.”
We saw from previous research that the comet originated in thick disk Inside our galaxy, the cradle of very ancient stars: if it came from that area, it would be older than the sun, but its kinematics may have been altered by stars meetings.
A journey from the past
The researchers explain that the origin of the comet and its journey can be known in greater detail by tracing its previous trajectory through the Milky Way.
“We integrated the orbit of 3i/Atlas back in time until 10 Myr (10 million years) by identifying a thick champion of stars (of the database Topic Dr3), which gave rise to close passages within a distance of 2 parsec (6.5 light years). “
The researchers thus calculated 93 meetings Stellari (of which 62 with a high level of confidence), all with stars of the main sequence.
This image shows the position of the stars who had a close encounter with the interstellar comet.
Note the fact that these stars found are all of the main sequence, since stars of this type are present as a vast majority in the catalogs, while the presence of dating with more advanced stars has not been found such as white dwarfs and neutron stars, which in theory can create decidedly higher disturbances than those found.
The most important close encounter took place 72000 years agowith the star called HD 187760, currently located a 84 light years from the sun and with a mass equal to 70%.
This meeting has, yes, altered the speed and trajectory of the 3i/Atlas, but only of a very small value: in front of this result, scholars say that “this small disturbance indicates that the interstellar comet non it was influenced by known kinematic stars, at least until 4.74 Myr (4.74 million years) in the past.
The interstellar comet did not have close encounters decisive With stars notes of the Gaia Dr3 catalog: the effects of these meetings have not been enough to justify the present trajectory and therefore we are unable to know its origin “.
Not everything is lost
This work has not been designed only for 3i/Atlas, but can be reused for other interstellar objects of the next few years.
In fact, it is desirable that in the future we will find more and more interstellar objects, especially thanks to the Vera Rubin Observatory: the forecasts say that it could find a couple of them a year or about 15 during its investigation period called LSST (Legacy Survey of Space and Time).
Observations of all these objects will provide us with a better understanding of the ISOs, intended as class of objects, still little known and will tell us a lot on how far the planetary material is scattered in the galaxy.
The star HD 187760
Driven by curiosity, I immediately went to see where he is and who this star is climbed to the honors of the news: thanks to Stellarium we see that he is in the constellation of the Sagittarius
And it is a star of magnitude 9.47 at a distance of 84.02±0.04 a.l. sun
It is obviously part of the catalog Topic Dr3 with the decidedly indigestible identification number (6863591389529611264) and the website of the Simbad It also provides other denominations that you can see in this image
