A Catalogue of Interstellar Material Delivery From Nearby Debris Disks

The idea of a coherent stream of material stemming from a single point of origin in the Galaxy and moving through the Solar System is compelling. Such streams, if they exist, could allow the linking of interstellar material detected near Earth—such as meteoroids or objects like ‘Oumuamua—and their source regions, placing these particles in a broader galactic context.

In this presentation, we explore whether known nearby debris disk stars—such as Beta Pictoris, Vega, Fomalhaut, and Epsilon Eridani—can act as significant sources of interstellar material reaching the Solar System. These systems are among the most well-studied examples of young, dusty environments where planet formation and planetesimal scattering processes are actively underway. Given their proximity and their history of strong collisional activity, they are natural candidates for the direct transport of extrasolar material to us.

In this work, we model each system's past trajectory through the Galaxy using a time-independent, axisymmetric, three-component potential of Miyamoto & Nagai (1975), including bulge, disk, and halo components. Simulations trace each system backward in time up to 100 million years, depending on the system’s estimated age.  Material is assumed to be ejected continuously from each system throughout this interval, with ejection speeds drawn from the planetary-scattering velocity distribution described by Bailer-Jones (2018). Ejection directions are randomized to represent isotropic scattering.

Each particle’s trajectory is numerically integrated through the Galactic potential, and its intersection with the Sun is recorded to determine whether and when it enters the Solar System. This enables us to evaluate not only whether material from each system can reach the Solar System, but also to estimate the efficiency of transfer and the characteristics of the resulting interstellar streams.

Our results demonstrate that material from each of the systems modelled to date can indeed intersect the Solar System. We derive expected fluxes of both large interstellar objects (potentially detectable by telescopic surveys) and smaller meteoroids (potentially detectable as meteors in Earth’s atmosphere). We estimate the number of such detections that might be expected per year from each system, and how these fluxes vary depending on assumptions about ejection rate.

These findings suggest that the Solar System is embedded in a complex environment of interstellar debris, with a potentially traceable contribution from specific nearby systems. Future observational campaigns for interstellar material within our Solar System may benefit from these predictions.