Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran
That totally depends on how fast it enters our system. Below the escape velocity of the sun and it will stay. If it's faster like the recently discovered extrasolar rock, then nope. It's just visiting.
http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/breakin...ote-not-aliens
In case anyone's missed this awesome discovery. |
That is an awesome story - in
The Economist, they said the asteroid should be named 'Rama', after
Rendezvous with Rama. It's what made me think of long-term asteroid threat.
If an extrasolar asteroid is moving slow enough to get captured by the sun, its subsequent orbit would still be highly erratic, right? Not just parabolic like a comet, but still swinging this way and that thanks to the initial extrasolar momentum, before 'settling down'.
I'm just wondering if such an asteroid could immediately settle into an Earth-grazing orbit (even one that is slightly erratic enough to eventually hit the Earth), or if it might not have different loops initially, only going near Earth once (if at all).