An article said this is the 3rd interstellar object detected. Are we detecting more interstellar visitors because they are getting more common, or have our techniques improved over the last few years?
the ∆v makes a sample return mission from an interstellar object currently impossible.
3l atlas is doing 63kilometers/second and anything even going whatever the minimum speed to qualify as interstellar will be goiing to fast to catch up to, and then have enough fuel to brake for a gravitational capture by the sun.
our best chance to learn about interstellar objects is to blast them with ultra high powered laser beams and use telescopes to do remote spectrographic and visual analysis , this could likely be cobbled together right now.
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