OmCheeto said:
Would you be willing to double check that? I double checked a second source, and I'm still getting my initial answer.
Sure can. I have no reason to be very confident in my numbers.
We have ##F = \frac{mv^2}{r} = \frac{Gm^2}{r^2}## where ##F## is the attractive force of the stars for each other, ##r## is the stellar orbital radius, ##m## is the stellar mass and ##v## is the stellar orbital velocity.
Edit: One can see that I've screwed up this calculation. If ##r## is the orbital radius, the relevant distance for purposes of gravitational force is ##2r##. So we need to modify the above equation to:$$F = \frac{mv^2}{r} = \frac{Gm^2}{4r^2}$$
We can solve [wrongly] for ##v = \sqrt{\frac{Gm}{r}}## and take ##r = 1.5 \times 10^{12}## while ##m = 2 \times 10^{30}## and ##G = 6.7 \times 10^{-11}##
Edit: The corrected solution $$v = \sqrt{\frac{Gm}{4r}}$$
Double checking units -- kilograms, meters and seconds. No obvious problems there.
I get 9500 m/s this time.
Edit: Corrected to 4250 m/s.
Meanwhile the object is moving at 30000 m/s. So my revised estimate is that the stars are
slower than the asteroid by a factor of
three six. Not faster as I'd initially suggested.