New calculations suggest that over 1 million large objects ejected from the Alpha Centauri system may be in the Oort Cloud, at the very edge of the solar system. (Image credit: Getty Images)
More than 1 million “interstellar objects” the size of the Statue of Liberty could be drifting undetected through the outer solar system right now, according to new simulations. The huge space bodies, which originate from our nearest stellar neighbors, are unlikely to ever come close to Earth. However, the study suggests that smaller interstellar particles likely collide with our planet on a regular basis.
To date, scientists have only found two confirmed interstellar objects in the solar system: the unusually elongated object 'Oumuamua, which some mistakenly believed to be an alien probe when it was spotted in 2017, and Comet Borisov, discovered in 2019. Both of these objects, which have since disappeared, were recorded moving quickly through our cosmic neighborhood, strongly suggesting they were of interstellar origin.
But scientists have long suspected that many other alien objects pass through the solar system undetected each year, and that even more such interlopers are likely here permanently. Several spacecraft, including NASA's now-defunct Cassini probe, have also previously detected tiny interstellar dust particles flying through the solar system.
In a new study uploaded Feb. 5 to the pre-print server arXiv, scientists modeled how much interstellar material has been ejected from Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth, over the past 100 million years. Based on these calculations, the researchers predict that there may currently be about 1 million “macroscopic objects” from Alpha Centauri in our solar system, each larger than 330 feet (100 meters) wide. (These results have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but have been accepted for publication in The Planetary Science Journal.)
Unlike 'Oumuamua and Borisov, these hypothetical intruders were forever captured by the Sun's gravity, and most of them are probably now in the Oort Cloud, a vast reservoir of comets and asteroids at the edge of the solar system, making them virtually impossible to detect.
The cigar-shaped interstellar object 'Oumuamua flew through the solar system in 2017, sparking speculation that it could be an alien probe.
The research team also modeled how smaller particles travel from Alpha Centauri to the solar system. The scientists suggest that any particles larger than 100 micrometers (0.004 inches) are
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