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306 points gammarator | 10 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom

Minor Planet Electronic Circular: https://minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K25/K25N12.html
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ddahlen ◴[] No.44451980[source]
This one is coming in fast, it has an eccentricity of over 6 with the current fits. For point of reference, 1I and 2I have eccentricities of 1.2 and 3.3.

Right now it is mostly just a point on the sky, it is difficult to tell if it is active (like a comet) yet. If it is not active, IE: asteroid like, then the current observations put it somewhere between 8-22km in diameter (this depends on the albedo of the surface). From what we know, we would expect it to likely be made up of darker material meaning given that range of diameters it is more likely to be on the larger end. However if it is active, then the dust coming off can make it appear much larger than it is. As it comes in closer to the sun and starts to warm up it may become active (or more active if its already doing stuff).

It will not pass particularly close to any planet. It will be closest to the sun just before Halloween this year at 1.35 au, moving at 68 km/s (earth orbits at 29-30 km/s). It is also retrograde (IE, it is moving in the opposite direction of planetary motion), for an interstellar object this is basically random chance that this is the case.

Link to an orbit viewer: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=3I&vi...

The next couple of weeks will be interesting for a bunch of people I know.

Source: Working on my PhD in orbital dynamics and formerly wrote the asteroid simulation code used on several NASA missions: https://github.com/dahlend/kete

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TrainedMonkey ◴[] No.44452189[source]
From the simulation you linked looks like it is passing closeish to the Mars... but I do know that space is big. However, I am curious of what would happen if an object of this magnitude hit mars at 90km/s.
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nandomrumber ◴[] No.44452468[source]
Would be wild if a sufficiently large object with a lot of water and organic molecules hit Mars, ejected a lot of material in to Mars’ orbit to then go on to form a sufficiently large moon that tidally massaged Mars’ core to cause a dynamo to generate a sufficiently strong magnetic field to…

Terraform Mars!

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1. belter ◴[] No.44454150[source]
What is easier? Not mess up this planet, or Terraform Mars?
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2. olvy0 ◴[] No.44454206[source]
Username checks out.
3. malfist ◴[] No.44454403[source]
I don't know. Have you seen humanity? I think teraforming another planet is probably easier than not fucking up this one
4. bee_rider ◴[] No.44455109[source]
Belter, our future is in orbital habs. Going downwell is for tourism and archaeology.
5. dotnet00 ◴[] No.44455557[source]
Can you walk and chew gum?
6. irrational ◴[] No.44456276[source]
It’s not worth doing because it is easier, but because all of our eggs are in one basket (planet). We know of disasters that can wipe out almost all life on a single planet. Of course, there are also disasters that can wipe out all life in one star system (and one region of the Galaxy). So, ideally we need to colonize many worlds in many different parts of the Galaxy, but baby steps. Step one is to have a sustainable population on multiple moons/planets/stations of this star system before we jump to other star systems.
7. SoftTalker ◴[] No.44460517[source]
Vastly easier to not only stop but also undo all the damage here than to do anything of consequence on Mars.
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8. nandomrumber ◴[] No.44460620[source]
Would be pretty hard to fuck up Mars’ biosphere.
9. ◴[] No.44461420[source]
10. vikingerik ◴[] No.44465923[source]
The best way I heard this put: Before we worry about terraforming Mars, maybe first we should stop Venusforming Terra.