4 ms·
>travelling at roughly 28 miles per second. That's (~45 km/s) pretty close to the Sun's escape velocity from Earth (~42 km/s). I wonder if there's a chance it'
by TheBlight 2y ago
>travelling at roughly 28 miles per second.
That's (~45 km/s) pretty close to the Sun's escape velocity from Earth (~42 km/s). I wonder if there's a chance it's interstellar.
- belter 2y agoLet's hope it's the only fragment. Interstellar objects come fast, unexpected, and out of NASA current tracking...
- TheBlight 2y agoIt was definitely moving fast. After a quick browse, only 2 other fireballs were moving at least that fast in the CNEOS catalog (https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/ https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/). It would be interesting to know its velocity components. Hopefully NASA will have and report that data.
- jojobas 2y ago42km/s is assuming you use all of Earth's orbital velocity (~30km/s) to your favor, a small deviation means 45km/s won't cut it. In terms of possible angles, it's a very low chance of an interstellar object.
- TheBlight 2y agoI don't think that's accurate. 42 km/s is purely a function of the Sun's mass and the distance of Earth's orbit. If we used the Earth's orbital speed (~30 km/s) and launched from Earth in that continued direction we would only need ~12 km/s additional velocity.