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Astronomers discover 3I/ATLAS – Third interstellar object to visit Solar System

(www.abc.net.au)
306 points gammarator | 2 comments | 03 Jul 25 03:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

Minor Planet Electronic Circular: https://minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K25/K25N12.html
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ordu ◴[03 Jul 25 05:27 UTC] No.44451907[source]▶
Judging by how humanity didn't see any of those for millennia and now three in just several years, I can propose two hypotheses:

1. Astronomers became good enough to notice them 2. These rocks are first in an incoming flood of such objects, the Universe decided to destroy humanity.

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haiku2077 ◴[03 Jul 25 05:35 UTC] No.44451938[source]▶
3. After we found the first one by chance we started looking for more objects outside the solar system's orbital plane
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1. eesmith ◴[03 Jul 25 06:53 UTC] No.44452362[source]▶
This object is near the solar system's orbital plane - far closer than Halley's comet, for example.

People have searched off the orbital plane for a long time, if only to find new comets.

This object was found by ATLAS, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. The project goal is to identify near-earth asteroids, evaluate the risk they might impact the Earth, and alert others if impact is predicted.

The project started in 2015, two years before ʻOumuamua. It was not made specifically to find interstellar objects transiting the solar system.

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2. metalman ◴[03 Jul 25 12:53 UTC] No.44454508[source]▶
un-nervingly near the orbital plane, as the depiction shows the object passing just above, on approach, and juct below, on departure, of the orbital plane of mars given the low relative speed of these objects so far, we can define them as extra solar, something exra galactic could be moveing at fractional light speed relative to us and be almost impossible to see and track unless it was realy big and close, and as there are confirmed exra galactic stars, it is not conjecture to to then include rouge planets and asteriods ,etc in the list of signatures to be looking for, and perhaps dismissed from previous data as bieng equipment artifacts or noise.