# On the Existence of Interstellar Meteoroids

A meteoroid in orbit around the Sun has a heliocentric velocity in the vicinity of Earth of about 42.1 km/s. So if a meteoroid has a heliocentric velocity exceeding that, it will have an open (hyperbolic) orbit and would not have originated in the solar system. As a meteoroid encounters Earth's atmosphere it encounters atmospheric atoms and molecules, generating heat that causes atoms to boil off and collide with those in the atmosphere. This produces ionized particles which surround the meteoroid with a glowing envelope leaving a column of plasma. The meteoroid is now seen as a meteor.

Meteor velocities measured by radar and optical means have indicated the detection of many hyperbolic meteoroid orbits (heliocentric velocities exceeding 42.1 km/s), but velocity measurement errors which occur in the 10% range have cast doubt on their interstellar meteoroid status. However, it's clear that the solar system must be embedded in dusts and gasses originating from nearby star systems, so the existence of hyperbolic meteoroids should not be in doubt.

What is the technical difficulty in obtaining sufficiently accurate velocity measurements to prove or disprove the existence of interstellar meteors?

-
 Microlensing MACHO searches make it very clear that there are many sub-stellar heavy bodies out between the stars, and I don't know of anyone who doubts that there are light objects out there too, it just that Douglas Adams was going down the right road with his "Space is big..." line. – dmckee♦ Jun 13 '12 at 1:41

 I want to pick a nit with "(and therefore at least 4.2 light years!)". It's more-or-less true in this case, but it makes it sound like every interstellar object should be associated with a developed star system, which seems dubious to me. Presumably there are quite a few objects in interstellar space that were ejected from formation neublas or from other structure that underwent a bit of local gravitational collapse without having even the potential to form a full star. These cold objects could be drifting around with low relative velocities for enormous time periods. – dmckee♦ Jun 13 '12 at 15:42 I'll certainly concede your point. However I think it's still true that an extrasolar object detected in the Solar System would be extremely unlikely to have a velocity within 10% of the escape velocity, because that meant it was essentially stationary wrt the Earth before it entered the Sun's gravity well. – John Rennie Jun 13 '12 at 16:31 Sure. If only because the mean time between encounters goes by $1/v$ most of the extrasolar material will be coming in pretty fast. – dmckee♦ Jun 13 '12 at 16:43