We finally have the technology to detect interstellar objects. We’ve found two in the last few years.”or ‘Oumuamua It’s in 2 I / BorisovUndoubtedly, there are more.
Thus, there was a lot of interest in developing a mission that could visit a person as soon as he was discovered. But what would such a task look like?
Currently, draft document A team of mostly American scientists tried to answer this question and took us one step further to launch this mission.
Part of what makes the Interstellar Visitor quest so interesting is that the Interstellar Visitors are so weird. Borisov acted like a normal comet when it entered the solar system, but ‘Oumuamua was a completely different beast.
It never formed a comet tail, as many scientists predicted. It also showed an acceleration that was apparently not explained by radioactivity or other causes, leading some prominent scientists to claim that it could have been a space probe.
The best way to combat these bizarre claims is to study them carefully. And for this we must have a mission that can achieve this. But first we have to see, and astronomers are already working on it.
Observatory of Space and Time Levantamento do Legado do Vera Sea RobinLSST) will be able to detect between 1 and 10 interstellar objects of roughly the same size as ‘Oumuamua each year, according to the authors’ calculations.
There are many opportunities to find the right candidate. But what criteria should this candidate meet?
More importantly, it would be: “Where does it come from?” While there is no “best” angle for approaching an interstellar object (ISO), it does matter depending on where we store the “interstellar intercept” (ISI).
According to the article, the best place to do this is probably the Earth-Sol L2 Lagrange point. It has more than one advantage – firstly, very little fuel is required to stay at the station, and any ISI may have to wait in a warehouse for years.
Once called to work, he must react quickly, and another L2 resident can help him in this.
NASA’s Time Domain Spectral Observatory (TSO) is a 1.5-meter telescope planned to be located at the L2 Lagrange point along with more established telescopes such as JWST.
For all its incredible ability to take amazing photos, JWST has one big drawback – it’s slow. Focusing on a specific subject can take 2-5 days, making it useless when tracking ISO files. On the other hand, TSO only takes a few minutes.
It can be supplemented by another telescope planned by NEO, which is supposed to be located at the L1 Lagrange point of the Earth-Moon system.
Combined with TSO, these two high-sensitivity telescopes should be able to image any ISO object that enters the inner Solar System but is not directly on the path along the L1-L2 baseline.
Once discovered, accessing the ISO is the next task. Some, unfortunately, will be elusive from the point of view of orbital mechanics.
But the authors calculated that there is an 85 percent chance that the ISI stored in L2 will be able to find a suitable ‘Oumuamua-sized object of interest within 10 years.
Thus, once we can find the ISO, we just need to patiently wait for the right opportunity.
Once ISI gets into the ISO, it will be able to start a thorough study, including a full spectral map of natural and synthetic materials, which could help resolve the debate over whether these objects are sensors made by aliens.
He was also able to track any gas releases that could explain the mysterious forces at work on ‘Oumuamua.
Undoubtedly, there are many interesting things that scientists want to understand about the first interstellar object that we visited.
But from the calculations in this article, there will be many opportunities to do this and a lot of data to collect when we do. Then it’s time to move on to the planning stages!
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