A kinematical age for the interstellar object 1I/'Oumuamua

TL;DR

This study estimates the age of interstellar object 1I/'Oumuamua by analyzing its galactic orbit and comparing it to stellar populations, suggesting it is approximately 0.2 to 0.45 billion years old.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to estimate the age of interstellar objects using galactic orbital parameters and stellar velocity distributions.

Findings

Estimated 'Oumuamua's age between 0.01 and 1.87 Gyr.

Most likely age range is 0.20-0.45 Gyr.

Method accounts for uncertainties in Solar motion and ejection processes.

Abstract

1I/'Oumuamua is the first interstellar object observed passing through the Solar System. Understanding the nature of these objects will provide crucial information about the formation and evolution of planetary systems, and the chemodynamical evolution of the Galaxy as a whole. We obtained the galactic orbital parameters of this object, considering 8 different models for the Galaxy, and compared it to those of stars of different ages from the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey (GCS). Assuming that the galactic orbital evolution of this object is similar to that of stars, we applied a Bayesian analyses and used the distribution of stellar velocities, as a function of age, to obtain a probability density function for the age of 'Oumuamua. We considered two models for the age-velocity dispersion relation (AVR): the traditional power law, fitted using data from the GCS; and a model that implements a second power law for younger ages, which we fitted using a sample of 153 Open Clusters (OCs). We find that the slope of the AVR is smaller for OCs than it is for field stars. Using these AVRs, we constrained an age range of 0.01-1.87 Gyr for 'Oumuamua and characterized a most likely age ranging between 0.20-0.45 Gyr, depending on the model used for the AVR. We also estimated the intrinsic uncertainties of the method due to not knowing the exact value of the Solar motion and the particularities of 1I/'Oumuamua's ejection.