A new study has discovered the first known permanent immigrant to our Solar System. The asteroid, currently nestling in Jupiter's orbit, is the first known asteroid to have been captured from another star system. The work is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.
All of the planets in our Solar System, and the vast majority of other objects as well, travel around the Sun in the same direction. However 2015 BZ509 is different - it moves in the opposite direction in what is known as a 'retrograde' orbit.
"How the asteroid came to move in this way while sharing Jupiter's orbit has until now been a mystery," explains Dr Fathi Namouni, lead author of the study. "If 2015 BZ509 were a native of our system, it should have had the same original direction as all of the other planets and asteroids, inherited from the cloud of gas and dust that formed them."
"Asteroid immigration from other star systems occurs because the Sun initially formed in a tightly-packed star cluster, where every star had its own system of planets and asteroids," comments Dr Helena Morais, the other member of the team.
"The close proximity of the stars, aided by the gravitational forces of the planets, help these systems attract, remove and capture asteroids from one another."
The discovery of the first permanent asteroid immigrant in the Solar System has important implications for the open problems of planet formation, solar system evolution, and possibly the origin of life itself.
Understanding exactly when and how 2015 BZ509 settled in the Solar System provides clues about the Sun's original star nursery, and about the potential enrichment of our early environment with components necessary for the appearance of life on Earth.
Source: Royal Astronomical Society [May 21, 2018]