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Detecting and Tracking Interstellar Objects (How to Build a City on Mars Series)

Small Steps & Giant Leaps Events

Zoom

Past Event

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About Event

Agenda

12:00pm to 1:00pm PST

Opening mixer/discussion/introductions (not recorded/broadcast)

1:00pm to 2:00pm PST

Special speaker (Recorded & broadcast to multiple platforms)

Description

We have now seen at least three confirmed interstellar visitors: 1I/ʻOumuamua, discovered in 2017 by Pan-STARRS1; 2I/Borisov in 2019; and 3I/ATLAS, first spotted on July 1, 2025 by the ATLAS survey telescope in Río Hurtado, Chile. 3I/ATLAS is not just another comet. It is material from another planetary system, crossing ours on a one-time hyperbolic trajectory and carrying chemical, dynamical, and formation clues we almost never get to sample.

But here’s the problem: these objects are faint, fast, and usually discovered late. ʻOumuamua was already outbound when we found it. 3I/ATLAS was caught because survey telescopes, orbital calculations, and rapid follow-up all worked fast enough to turn a moving dot into an interstellar diagnosis. So how do we get better at this before the next one arrives?

Join us for a conversation and Q&A with Dr. Jim Green, retired NASA Chief Scientist, and other special guests on what it takes to detect, confirm, and study interstellar objects before they disappear forever. This is planetary defense meeting galactic archaeology. Come prepared with hard questions about hyperbolic excess velocity, non-gravitational acceleration, cometary outgassing, survey cadence, and why the most important object in the sky may first appear as a barely noticeable streak in yesterday’s data.

Speaker(s)

Dr. Jim Green, Former Chief Scientist of NASA
More to be announced

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