New Insights into Interstellar Object 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua) from SOHO/STEREO Nondetections

TL;DR

This study used SOHO and STEREO images to analyze `Oumuamua's behavior around perihelion, providing new constraints on its physical properties and activity, and suggesting possible mechanisms for its observed nongravitational motion.

Contribution

It offers the first nondetection-based constraints on `Oumuamua's dust coma, water production, and activity mechanisms using solar observatory data.

Findings

Nondetection constrains dust coma cross-section to ≤2.1×10^4 m^2

Water production rate at 0.375 au is ≤6.1×10^25 s^-1

Nongravitational motion implies bulk density ≤40 kg/m^3

Abstract

Object 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua) is the first interstellar small body ever discovered in the solar system. By the time of discovery, it had already passed perihelion. To investigate the behavior of `Oumuamua around perihelion, we searched for it in Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) images from early 2017 September (preperihelion), but did not detect it. The nondetection of `Oumuamua by STEREO renders more stringent constraints on its physical properties thanks to the extreme forward-scattering observing geometry. Assuming geometric albedo $p_V = 0.1$, the effective scattering cross-section of any dust coma was $\lesssim \left(2.1 \pm 0.2 \right) \times 10^{4}$ m$^{2}$. Assuming it behaved like a typical solar-system comet this would correspond to a total mass of $\lesssim 20 \pm 2$ kg, and a water production rate of $\lesssim \left(6.1 \pm 0.5 \right) \times 10^{25}$ s$^{-1}$ at heliocentric distance $r_{\rm H} = 0.375$ au. If scaled to post-discovery $r_{\rm H}$, the water production rate would be smaller than any of the previously reported upper limits by at least an order of magnitude. To exhibit the reported nongravitational motion with our default assumptions requires a nucleus bulk density $\lesssim$40 kg m$^{-3}$; higher bulk densities are possible for other assumptions. Alternatively, we show that thermal fracturing could have plausibly removed an inert surface layer between these observations and discovery, thus initiating activity after `Oumuamua left the field of view of STEREO.