A new study questions if our planet could capture rocky and icy visitors from outside the solar system — and how scientists could spot them.
Astronomers have found that renegade objects from alien star systems could be captured by Earth's gravity and linger in orbit around our planet for potentially millions of years. However, most of these objects would likely be too small to detect with current telescopes, according to a new study published May 17 on the preprint server arXiv.
'Oumuamua's 1,300-foot-long , highly elongated shape makes it around 10 times as long as it is wide, setting it apart from any known asteroids or comets native to our solar system. After observing the javelin-like space rock further, scientists concluded that it had been wandering our galaxy, unassociated with any star system, for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounter with the solar system.
Previous attempts to study this idea have focused on capture by the sun and Jupiter system. For the new study, the researchers set about investigating if Earth could also capture interstellar visitors and hold on to them as NEOs.
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