Alien asteroid is first known 'permanent resident' from outside our solar system

[ramus]

Alien asteroid is first known 'permanent resident' from outside our solar system

Doyle Rice,

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...tem/629520002/

USA TODAY Published 3:50 p.m. ET May 21, 2018 | Updated 7:46 a.m. ET May 22, 2018

Hey bub, you're going the wrong way.

The solar system's first known "resident" that came from interstellar space — an asteroid orbiting backward around Jupiter — has been discovered, scientists announced Monday.

“How the asteroid came to move in this way while sharing Jupiter’s orbit has until now been a mystery,” said Fathi Namouni, lead author of the new study and a scientist at the University of Cote d'Azur in Nice, France.

The planets and most other objects in our solar system travel around the sun in the same direction. This asteroid is different — moving in the opposite direction in "retrograde" orbit.

The asteroid has the inelegant name of 2015 BZ509, indicating the year of its discovery.

Astronomers base their finding on extensive computer simulations that show the object has always orbited in reverse around the sun.

“If 2015 BZ509 were a native of our system, it should have had the same original direction as all of the other planets and asteroids, inherited from the cloud of gas and dust that formed them," Namouni said.

The asteroid, about 2 miles across, arrived in our solar system shortly after it formed 4.5 billion years ago.

If it's not native to our solar system, then where did it come from?

"Asteroid immigration from other star systems occurs because the sun initially formed in a tightly packed star cluster, where every star had its own system of planets and asteroids," said Helena Morais, a study co-author from Sao Paulo State University in Brazil.

"The close proximity of the stars, aided by the gravitational forces of the planets, help these systems attract, remove and capture asteroids from one another," she said.

The study comes several months after the discovery of another interstellar asteroid named Oumuamua, which briefly zoomed through the solar system last fall.

More: It came from outer space: Astronomers discover first asteroid from outside our solar system

Other experts questioned whether the new asteroid came from outside our solar system.

“It's feasible what they're saying, but there are other possibilities,” Elisa Quintana, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center told The Washington Post. Quintana, who was not involved in the study, said, “We live in such a dynamical universe, it's hard to rule out just pure chaos and collisions.”

The study's authors said the discovery of the first permanent asteroid from outside the solar system opens questions about how planets form, the evolution of the solar system and and possibly the origin of life itself.

Morais said looking for strange orbits may help scientists identify other alien asteroids hiding in the solar system, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported. "We believe others are there at the moment. The question is to figure out which ones."

The study was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.
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"The planets and most other objects in our solar system travel around the sun in the same direction. This asteroid is different — moving in the opposite direction in "retrograde" orbit."

What if it was self propelled or in another word, a space vehicle traveling in the opposite direction

[Bill Ryan]

Yes. See this other interesting thread — which is actually about a different object.

• Interstellar object confirmed to be from another solar system

[uzn]

Thats old News from the 29.03.2017.

Simulation of Asteroid 2015 BZ509

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7_QbYX4jTrI

[1paintertoo]

Researcher Richard C. Hoagland posits that asteroids and a few moons within our solar system exhibit constructed geometry on their surfaces and were occupied eons ago; some possibly serving as interplanetary space transportation. There's tons of material on his work out on the web. If interested, here's a link to his website: http://enterprisemission.com/

This ties in nicely with alternative thinker Dr. Joseph P. Farrell in his Cosmic War series that describes a cataclysmic occurrence within our solar system 3.2 million years and/or 65 million years ago. If interested, here's a link to his website: https://gizadeathstar.com/

[Justplain]

Other anomalies in our solar system:

a) Pluto has a strange orbit that comes inside of neptune's at times while mostly well beyond, like it is a captured interstellar object.

b) Uranus spins on its side, with its pole facing the sun, like no other planet or planetoid.

c) Tritan: (from wikiipedia) Triton is unique among moons of planetary mass in that its orbit is retrograde to Neptune's rotation and inclined relative to Neptune's equator, which suggests that it did not form in orbit around Neptune but was instead gravitationally captured by it. The next-largest irregular satellite in the Solar System, Saturn's moon Phoebe, has only 0.03% of Triton's mass.

d) Iapetus: (national geographic) Of all the moons in the solar system, Iapetus has to be among the weirdest. Named after a spear-wielding Titan, the strange Saturnian satellite is less than half the size of Earth’s moon. But it’s a cluster of enigmas: Squished at its poles, the moon is walnut-shaped, has a face as black as coal and a bright white backside, and wears a big, spiky mountain range as a belt.
Even its orbit is weird: Iapetus is roughly three times farther from Saturn than its closest neighbor, Titan. And the path it takes around the planet is tilted, meaning it swings up and down as it orbits, rather than staying in the plane of Saturn’s rings like the rest of the “normal” satellites.
Among the strangest of Iapetus’ unsolved mysteries is its super-chic, spiky mountain range. Running straight as an arrow along three-quarters of the moon’s equator, the thing is huge: Roughly 20 kilometers tall and up to 200 kilometers wide. (The peak of Mt. Everest, in comparison, rises only 8.85 kilometers above sea level.) There’s nothing else like it in the solar system.
Some speculate that Iapetus is actually an artificial satelite.