February 16
Get closer to be far away: Comparing Interstellar and Distant Comets
Dr. Teddy Kareta,
Villanova
Abstract: The first three interstellar objects (ISOs) discovered have been both deeply familiar and puzzlingly alien. The promise of the ISOs -- to see how exoplanetary systems have formed planetesimals and to compare them to our own -- is limited not just due to their (current) small number but also due to our lack of knowledge of similar objects in our own neighborhood. When their properties do remind us of our own ‘small bodies’, it is of our own distantly active comets, those which show cometary activity not dominated by the sublimation of water ice, and those with rare compositions. In other words, the dim stuff and the rare stuff. Tough! In this talk, I will review some of the challenges encountered thus far in interpreting the properties of interstellar comets like 2I/Borisov and 3I/ATLAS and potential paths forward through a better understanding of the behavior and evolution of our own Solar System’s distant and coldest comets. I will also highlight several other areas that are likely to benefit from ongoing research into distant comets, from understanding the astrobiological role impacts play on Europa to the structure of the far outer Solar System.
Host: Ben Sharkey