A lot of substance from the neighboring alpha centaurus has already arrived in the solar system, modeling showed

Recent discoveries in the solar system, such as the asteroid Oumuamua and the comet Borisov, clearly showed that interstellar objects are not rare guests in the solar system. This inspired Canadian astronomers to find an answer to the question: how much substance could overcome the interstellar distance separating us from our closest galactic neighbor – the Alpha Centaurus system? It turned out that quite a lot, although not enough to open it at every step.

Artist’s representation of the asteroid ‘Oumuamua. Image source: ESA

In their work, researchers used models of release of substance from the solar system, in particular, known trajectories of long -period comets and asteroids. But they note that this issue has not been worked out very deeply. Therefore, the accuracy of constructing a model for the release of a substance from a completely different and practically unexplored system will be quite rough. But so far there is only that.

The star system of Alpha Centaurus is slightly older than the sunny – she is 5 billion years old. It is quite mature and can contain planets in all of its three stars: pairs from alpha Centaur A and B, as well as the proxima of the Centaurus rotating around them. Mature systems should not throw a lot of substance – they chose it either for the formation of stars or for the formation of planets. Finally, the internal orbits by this time had to become stable. However, three stars and many planets, simply according to the law of large numbers, will throw quite a lot of substance from the system. It is on this that the calculation of scientists is built.

According to the parameters laid in the model, the particles of a substance from the alpha centaur system will experience the resistance of the interstellar medium, gravitational and magnetic disturbances. All this will be detained to one degree or another, change the trajectory or even destroy the substance from a different system. In general, a number of 3.3 microns, on which magnetic fields will have the most powerful effect, have a chance to get to us in many particles with an average size of 3.3 microns. These fields limit the distribution range of such particles 1.5 PS (approximately 4.8 light years). This is just the distance to the Alpha Centaurus system.

At the same time, models show that in our Oort cloud there can be over a million objects from the alpha centaur system with a diameter of more than 100 m. The chance to find such objects within a radius of 10 A.E. From the sun they evaluate as one to a million. Models also showed that every year in the Earth’s atmosphere they can burn up to 10 micrometeors from the neighboring system. Since it comes closer to the solar system at a speed of 22 km/s, after about 28 thousand years it will fit at a minimum distance of 200 A.E. And then such interstellar meteors will burn an order of magnitude more in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The work carried out shows that material from another star system can fly to us without the need to organize flights of probes or ships to other systems. This is all the more interesting if the material comes to us from systems with exoplanets. If you manage to find a way to detect such and other particles from other star systems, this will give a lot for science for quite modest means.