DISCOVERY
Discovered on 19 Oct 2017, A/2017/U1 stood out as not an ordinary object solar system. In fact it was quite literally out of this world! Passing a mere 0.2 AU from Earth at a speed of around 26 km/s (58,160 mph), this incredible interstellar body quickly gained attention in the scientific community as being the first object in our solar system to be found to have not originated in it.
Robert Weryk discovered A/2017/U1 on its near Earth visit. It was at first classified as a comet but was shortly reclassified to being an asteroid. The asteroid was found to be hyperbolic and have an eccentricity of 1.95 ± .001, which is now the record holder for our solar system, and an outbound eccentricity of 1.057. These suggests that the object has never been been tied to a solar system and has been drifting about in space since its birth. You can see its path in the GIF bellow.
What Does This Mean?
It has long been assumed that objects from outside the solar system pass by or through our own ever since it has existed and this is quite possibly true, but solid proof of these objects hasn't ever been found before A/2017/U1. It was speculated that it could be a returning object that got shot out in the early formation of our system by large bodies such as Jupiter. However it seams to intersect our solar system at around a 90 degree angle from its face as can be seen in the GIF. This means that it couldn't be a returning object from an event like that, further enforcing it's interstellar status.
A/2017/U1 may offer some insight into what other solar systems may be like but as it was so recently discovered and only passed the Earth very shortly limited information has been found on it. So far it is just a rather interesting interstellar novelty opens the doors to do more research on similar objects.
Picture Credit:
Title picture ☛ www.nasa.gov
GIF ☛ www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/comet20171025-16.gif
#Info Sources:
☛ www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/small-asteroid-or-comet-visits-from-beyond-the-solar-system
☛ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/2017_U1