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Strange Asteroid May Be A Permanent Alien Guest

Last fall, an asteroid we named ʻOumuamua passed through the Solar System. Its visit marked the first time we’ve identified an object inside the Solar System that definitely came from outside. However, a new study argues that we might have a more permanent interstellar guest: a weird asteroid called 2015 BZ509.

Thousands of asteroids swarm around Jupiter’s orbit, but they all orbit the same direction as the giant planet except 2015 BZ509. This weirdo orbits the opposite direction — “retrograde” in technical terms — at a highly tilted angle. Fathi Namouni and Helena Morais performed a computer simulation which demonstrates that 2015 BZ509 could stay in its orbit for billions of years, but it’s unlikely it formed there when the rest of the Solar System was born. Instead, the authors argue, it probably originated outside the Solar System and drifted in, where it was captured by gravity.

[Read the rest at Forbes…]