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On the Consequences of the Detection of an Interstellar Asteroid

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 نشر من قبل Gregory Laughlin
 تاريخ النشر 2017
  مجال البحث فيزياء
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The arrival of the robustly hyperbolic asteroid A/2017 U1 has potentially interesting ramifications for the planet-formation process. Although extrapolations from a sample size of one are necessarily uncertain, order-of-magnitude estimates suggest that the Galaxy contains a substantial mass in similar bodies. We argue that despite its lack of Coma, A/2017 U1 likely contained a significant mass fraction of volatile components, and we argue that its presence can be used to infer a potentially large population of as-yet undetected Neptune-like extrasolar planets.



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