Quote:New interstellar object visiting our solar system

There’s a new object in the solar system headed toward the sun, and it may have come from interstellar space. We only know of two other interstellar objects that have entered into our solar system before, ‘Oumuamua and Comet 2I/Borisov. The nature of ‘Oumuamua is still a matter of debate, and the second was a comet from another solar system. And now we may have a third interstellar visitor. Currently named A11pl3Z, this object has a trajectory that suggests it didn’t originate inside our own solar system.

The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center added the object to their Near-Earth Object confirmation list on July 1, 2025. The object is also on NASA/JPL’s website for Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page under A11pl3Z. Despite being listed as a near-Earth object, there is no fear of it hitting Earth or even coming particularly close.
So what is the new visitor? Well, it’s likely either a comet or an asteroid, but it’s too soon (and too far away) at this point to say with any certainty.

Quote:Observations of the visitor

Astrafoxen, an astrophysics undergrad student in California on Bluesky, has shared an image of A11pl3Z from the Deep Random Survey in Chile. Additionally, Sam Deen, a prolific amateur astronomer, found earlier images of the object in ATLAS data from June 25 to 29. These data points help show the track of the object, indicating that it is almost certainly interstellar.
The dim space rock is currently at about magnitude 18.8. Our new visitor, A11pl3Z, will get its closest to the sun – at about 2 astronomical units (AU), or twice as far as Earth is from the sun – in October. As it reaches perihelion – its closest point to the sun – it should be moving at about 68 km/s relative to the sun, or at about 152,000 miles per hour.
Marshall Eubanks, a physicist and VLBI radio astronomer and co-founder of Space Initiatives, said on the Minor Planet Mailing List that the object could be as large as 12 miles (20 km) in diameter. It will also come within about 0.4 AU of Mars in October, which would make it just barely observable by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. With the current orbital data, Eubanks said:

Quote:This object appears to be coming from the thin galactic disk.

Quote:The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center added the object to their Near-Earth Object confirmation list on July 1, 2025.

(Yesterday, 07:37 PM)gortex Wrote:

Quote:The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center added the object to their Near-Earth Object confirmation list on July 1, 2025.

Just in time for World UFO Day , today !

Happy World UFO Day ! , I for one welcome our Alien overlords.

(Today, 04:52 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: July 2, 1996: Aliens positioned their ships at major cities around the world.

Happy World UFO day! 

Quote:An extrapolation of A11pl3Z’s orbit implies that its closest distance to Earth would be 2.4 times the Earth-Sun separation (=astronomical unit, abbreviated as AU) on December 17, 2025 and that it will pass much closer to Jupiter around March 10, 2026. This is because the Earth happens to be on the other side of its orbit around the Sun when A11pl3Z gets close to the Sun.
Its closest distance from the Sun is expected to be about 1.4 AU on October 27, 2025, three weeks after its passage within 0.4 AU from Mars. The current distances of A11pl3Z are about 3.8 AU from Earth and 4.8 AU from the Sun as of July 2, 2025.

Quote:Observing A11pl3Z also with the Webb telescope, located a million miles away from an Earth-based telescope, will allow us to detect via parallax any non-gravitational acceleration to exquisite precision, as shown in a recent paper I wrote with my student Sriram Elango.

The Webb telescope can also measure the emitted infrared flux and surface temperature of A11pl3Z — which when combined with its known parallax distance, can be used to infer its surface area. If the object is tumbling, it would be possible to use the evolution of the surface area projected along the line-of-sight in order to map the shape of the object in three dimensions.

The known size and shape and the reflected flux of sunlight from the object will allow us to infer its surface albedo (reflection coefficient) for sunlight. We did not have direct measurements of the area, surface temperature or albedo for `Oumuamua.
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/welcoming-a-new-interstellar-object-a11pi3z-0b01f1cb4fbc

(4 hours ago)gortex Wrote: Avi Loeb is calling for James Webb to investigate the object to see if it exhibits any none gravitational speed changes and measure its luminosity , seems this time they're looking at Mars and Jupiter.

Quote:An extrapolation of A11pl3Z’s orbit implies that its closest distance to Earth would be 2.4 times the Earth-Sun separation (=astronomical unit, abbreviated as AU) on December 17, 2025 and that it will pass much closer to Jupiter around March 10, 2026. This is because the Earth happens to be on the other side of its orbit around the Sun when A11pl3Z gets close to the Sun.
Its closest distance from the Sun is expected to be about 1.4 AU on October 27, 2025, three weeks after its passage within 0.4 AU from Mars. The current distances of A11pl3Z are about 3.8 AU from Earth and 4.8 AU from the Sun as of July 2, 2025.

Quote:Observing A11pl3Z also with the Webb telescope, located a million miles away from an Earth-based telescope, will allow us to detect via parallax any non-gravitational acceleration to exquisite precision, as shown in a recent paper I wrote with my student Sriram Elango.

The Webb telescope can also measure the emitted infrared flux and surface temperature of A11pl3Z — which when combined with its known parallax distance, can be used to infer its surface area. If the object is tumbling, it would be possible to use the evolution of the surface area projected along the line-of-sight in order to map the shape of the object in three dimensions.

The known size and shape and the reflected flux of sunlight from the object will allow us to infer its surface albedo (reflection coefficient) for sunlight. We did not have direct measurements of the area, surface temperature or albedo for `Oumuamua.
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/welcoming-a-new-interstellar-object-a11pi3z-0b01f1cb4fbc

Picture of ʻOumuamua 2.