Los Angeles Times

Stolen from another sun: This backward-traveling asteroid could be an interstellar space fossil

Scientists have discovered an immigrant in our midst: an asteroid near Jupiter's orbit that arrived from outside the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago.

The orbit of 2015 BZ509, described in a letter in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, could offer a way for scientists to sample the contents of distant star systems.

"If it's a good result, it's a little bit surprising - but promising," said David Jewitt, a planetary astronomer

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