The 2019 Discovery of a Meteor of Interstellar Origin

Abstract

The first interstellar object, 'Oumuamua, was discovered in the Solar System by Pan-STARRS in 2017, allowing for a calibration of the abundance of interstellar objects of its size ∼ 100 m. One would expect a much higher abundance of smaller interstellar objects, with some of them colliding with Earth frequently enough to be noticeable. Based on the CNEOS catalog of bolide events, we identify the ∼ 0.45m meteor detected at 2014-01-08 17:05:34 UTC as originating from an unbound hyperbolic orbit with 99.999% confidence. We infer that the meteor had an asymptotic speed of v ∞ ∼ 42.1±5.5 km s −1 outside of the solar system. Its origin is approximately towards R.A. 49.4±4.1 • and declination 11.2 ± 1.8 • , implying that its initial velocity vector was 58 ± 6 km s −1 away from the velocity of the Local Standard of Rest (LSR). Its high LSR speed implies a possible origin from the deep interior of a planetary system or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way galaxy. The local number density of its population is 10 6 +0.75 −1.5 AU −3 or 9 × 10 21 +0.75 −1.5 pc −3 (necessitating 0.2 -20 Earth masses of material to be ejected per local star). This discovery enables a new method for studying the composition of interstellar objects, based on spectroscopy of their gaseous debris as they burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

Hidden Planets: Implications from ’Oumuamua and DSHARP

“…Another potential constraint for this distribution is the number density n CNEOS = 10 6 +0.75 −1.5 au −3 of r CNEOS 0.45 m interstellar objects implied by the candidate interstellar meteor identified from the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) bolide catalog in Siraj & Loeb (2019). We note that Devillepoix et al (2018) reported that the United States government sensors used to discover this object are generally unreliable for orbit calculations.…”

Detecting Gravitational Scattering of Interstellar Objects Using Pulsar Timing

“…(35) Dohnanyi (1969) made a theoretical argument for taking α = 2.5 for material in collisional equilibrium in protoplanetary disks, and this appears to be broadly representative of small-body populations in the solar system (Jedicke et al 2002). Attempts have also been made to determine the exponent α for interstellar objects empirically, based on direct measurements of interstellar dust by the Ulysses and Galileo spacecraft (Landgraf et al 2000), and optical and radar detections of meteors identified as interstellar (Taylor et al 1996;Baggaley 2000;Meisel et al 2002;Weryk & Brown 2004;Hajduková 2008Hajduková , 2011Siraj & Loeb 2019a). On the basis of the Ulysses and Galileo data alone, Landgraf et al (2000) estimated α = 3.3.…”

“…On the basis of the Ulysses and Galileo data alone, Landgraf et al (2000) estimated α = 3.3. Most recently, Siraj & Loeb (2019b) arrived at α = 3.41 ± 0.17 in an analysis incorporating 'Oumuamua and the bolide meteor CNEOS 2014-01-08 (Siraj & Loeb 2019a), which is unique among meteors identified as interstellar because of its relatively large size, estimated at 0.45 m.…”

Observable Signatures of the Ejection Speed of Interstellar Objects from their Birth Systems

“…'Oumuamua was the first interstellar object discovered in the Solar system (Meech et al 2017;Micheli et al 2018). Its discovery was followed by interstellar comet Borisov (Guzik et al 2020), and preceded by interstellar meteor CNEOS-2014-01-08 (Siraj & Loeb 2019a). The Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) 1 will greatly increase the cadence of interstellar object discovery to a rate of several per year for 'Oumuamua-size objects (Rice & Laughlin 2019).…”