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Alpha Centauri is the star system that is closest to our solar system and it is likely that its particles will make their way or already be in our star neighborhood.
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To know what to expect, researchers used existing models to predict how many particles of different sizes can already exist in the solar system and possibly come from Alpha Centauri every year.
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Studying the disposal and transfer of Alfa Centaur particles can tell us more about how material is exchanged between star systems.
While interstellar objects (“oumuamua, someone?) Have passed through our solar system before, the origin of many of these objects remains unknown. Did they originate in the nearby star system? Far? A completely different galaxy?
Unfortunately, it is currently not possible to track “oumuamua down for a more exploration. This Eccentric orbit It will take too far for every spacecraft to reach or every telescope to observe. But this does not mean that we do not have interstellar objects available – it actually turns out that we have many particles from another star system that is already here.
The closest star system next to us is the Alpha Centauri triple system. Currently, it crawls closer to our solar system at 79,000 km per hour (about 49 709 miles / h) and should be about 27 700 years old now. With that in mind, researchers Cole Greg and Paul Wigrt of the University of Western Ontario decided to see how many objects of Alpha Centwori could do it to us already and how much they could do it here in the future.
“A small number [less than 10 meteors] Currently, it can enter the Earth’s atmosphere every year, “Greg and Wigert said in a study that will soon be published in Planetary scientific journal., “[and] is expected to increase as Alpha Centauri approaches. “
Alpha Centauri is a mature star system of 5 billion years. This means that the bigger part of the material in the protoplanert disc of this system has probably already been distracted, so it is not expected to release many debris into space (although there may be material from the system in our asteroid belt and our distant cloud on Oort). This said that the gravitational forces of more stars and planets make it more likely to scatter the material and there may be planets that go around to tour its three stars (though they have not yet been confirmed).
To find out if Alpha Centauri can discard material at the moment, researchers have turned to existing models about how star systems usually throw away debris. The models have predicted that despite the small number of Alpha Centauri items that are expected to reach Earth every year, there may be as many million items over one hundred meter in diameter from the system that is already lurking in our Oort Cloud (much more more. Small objects and particles can also be among them).
The problem is that Oort Cloud is on the outer edge of the solar system. This would make potential objects of Alpha Centauri – if they are really somewhere there – careless to watch. Although it would not be impossible. The NASA New Horizons mission has a dust detector, actively lifting particles in the Kuiper belt, which may be left over from the formation of our solar system. The Oort cloud is even further, but despite the declining fuel supply, the new horizons may be able to keep it long enough to get there and scan for the presence of something from Alpha Centauri.
This said that the presence of these sites was not sure. There is also the question of the smaller particles of Alfa Centaur, potentially not to survive the journey to the solar system. They could be diverted from magnetic fields, slow down significantly due to dragging in the interstellar environment, or managing them from extremely fast gas atoms or collisions with each other.
For all particles that survive and manage to enter the internal solar system, the gravity of the sun will greatly increase their speed. Even more particles could come from hypothetical comets – at least, they could if Alpha Centauri dumped as much as our solar system – but they are unlikely to be observed. Whether these potential particles are actually found remains to be seen.
“The deep understanding of the mechanisms by which the material can be transferred from Alpha Centaur into the solar system not only deepens our knowledge of interstellar transport,” the researchers said in the same study, “but it also opens new paths to examine the interconnectedness of the star state and Potential for the exchange of materials throughout the galaxy. “
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