Kinematics of the Interstellar Vagabond A/2017U1

Eric Mamajek
(Submitted on 31 Oct 2017)

The initial Galactic velocity vector for the recently discovered hyperbolic asteroid A/2017 U1 is calculated for before its encounter with our solar system. When the velocity is compared to the local stars, A/2017 U1 can be easily ruled out as co-moving with any of the dozen nearest systems, i.e. it does not appear to be associated with any local exo-Oort clouds (most notably that of the Alpha Centauri triple system). The object’s velocity is within 5 km/s of the mean Galactic velocity of the stars in the solar neighborhood (<25 pc), so its velocity would appear to be typical for that of a body whose velocity was drawn from the Galactic velocity distribution of the local stars. These calculations strengthen the interpretation that A/2017 U1 has a distant extrasolar origin, but not among the very nearest stars. Comments:    Submitted to Research Notes of the AAS; 4 pages, 1 figure, supporting table data
Subjects:    Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as:    arXiv:1710.11364 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1710.11364v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Eric E. Mamajek
[v1] Tue, 31 Oct 2017 08:03:34 GMT (54kb,D)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.11364