The Mass Budget Necessary to Explain `Oumuamua as a Nitrogen Iceberg

TL;DR

This paper evaluates whether `Oumuamua could be a nitrogen iceberg from exo-Pluto planets, concluding that the required planetary mass exceeds what is available in stars, thus challenging this hypothesis.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis showing the mass constraints that make the nitrogen iceberg hypothesis for `Oumuamua unlikely.

Findings

Mass needed exceeds stellar heavy element budget

Scenario is unlikely due to planetary mass constraints

Challenges the nitrogen iceberg origin hypothesis

Abstract

Recently, a nitrogen iceberg was proposed as a possible origin for the first interstellar object, 1I/2017 U1, also known as `Oumuamua. Here, we show that the mass budget in exo-Pluto planets necessary to explain the detection of `Oumuamua as a nitrogen iceberg chipped off from a planetary surface requires a mass of heavy elements exceeding the total quantity locked in stars with 95\% confidence, making the scenario untenable because only a small fraction of the mass in stars ends in exo-Plutos.