31–40 of 114 posts
How close to earth did it pass ? A possible extinction event just flew bye and there where nothing we could do about. Btw, that looks like a gravity assist/slingshot ...
0.16 AU, according to the paper.
I recommend anyone interested read the paper which is available as a preprint from Nature (for the moment): goo.gl/cSsHoj (link shortened due to having an embedded access token). Some tantalizing points from the paper: - They constrained the aspect ratio in two dimensions to be 10:1:C, but the third dimension is unconstrained. Depending on which axis the object is rotating around, C could either be 1, or 20. Either o…
- strange aspect ratio - tensile strength (it should be cartwheeling, there is a physics theorem which means everything tends to this configuration) - large flat or concave sections. - others are reporting it's mostly metallic. I'll say it: did anyone consider an alien spaceship? The paper seems to deduce "asteroidal" by ruling out other things, rather than by a positive measurement of rock spectra, unless I've misre…
I think it's a shame that this story hasn't gotten more attention. True, it doesn't tell us as much about the nature of the universe as the discovery of the Higgs boson, and it doesn't represent a major advance in engineering like gravitational wave detection. But it is the only chance we have ever had to directly view a largeish piece of another solar system, just millions of miles away. The next time probably won't…
> The next time probably won't come until we send a probe to Proxima Centauri. Well, I don't know about that. Who's to say how many interstellar objects pass through the solar system every year (earlier I read 1-10 a year, but who knows). Of course this is the first one we've actually detected (Roswell et al. jokes here), but our sensors and technology are only getting better. Even if Breakthrough Starshot[1] can lau…
After 8 years Oumuamua will be 6.64 billion km away (at 26.32km/s). A Starshot prototype probe flying at 1500km/s (0.5% of lightspeed c) could reach that distance in 51 days.
Starshot hopes to achieve 20% c eventually.
What was its speed at closest sun approach? Because the speed of objects in our solar system are all very low compared to the speed of the nearest solar system compared to our sun, I imagine this could also be the fastest object ever to be obversed in our solar system.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
- strange aspect ratio - tensile strength (it should be cartwheeling, there is a physics theorem which means everything tends to this configuration) - large flat or concave sections. - others are reporting it's mostly metallic. I'll say it: did anyone consider an alien spaceship? The paper seems to deduce "asteroidal" by ruling out other things, rather than by a positive measurement of rock spectra, unless I've misre…
Co-author here. We obtained spectroscopic measurements of 'Oumuamua, and its surface closely matches D-type asteroids and comet nuclei, which are dark, reddish and organic-rich.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And of course, of all the planets in the solar system, it made its closest approach to Earth, an astronomical "near miss" at just 0.16 AU That is presumably because there’re lots of these objects, but we can only detect the ones closest to us.
The authors estimate that there is ~1 such object within 1 AU of the sun at any given time. So, more common than we previously expected, but not exactly teeming. You're right that it was detected due to its nearness though - it was picked up in a routine near-Earth object survey by Pan-STARRS
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The authors estimate that there is ~1 such object within 1 AU of the sun at any given time. So, more common than we previously expected, but not exactly teeming. You're right that it was detected due to its nearness though - it was picked up in a routine near-Earth object survey by Pan-STARRS
If there is one within 1 AU of the Sun at any given time, then there are ~10^16 of them within a sphere out to the nearest star. I'll leave it to you to decide whether that's teeming or not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The next time probably won't come until we send a probe to Proxima Centauri. Well, I don't know about that. Who's to say how many interstellar objects pass through the solar system every year (earlier I read 1-10 a year, but who knows). Of course this is the first one we've actually detected (Roswell et al. jokes here), but our sensors and technology are only getting better. Even if Breakthrough Starshot[1] can lau…
Breakthrough Starshot could use I1/Oumuamua as a test object once they got some prototypes ready: After 8 years Oumuamua will be 6.64 billion km away (at 26.32km/s). A Starshot prototype probe flying at 1500km/s (0.5% of lightspeed c) could reach that distance in 51 days. Starshot hopes to achieve 20% c eventually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua#Potential_space...
> The Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) has studied potential options for sending a spacecraft to 1I/ʻOumuamua, perhaps using first a Jupiter flyby followed by a close solar flyby at 3 solar radii in order to take advantage of the Oberth effect. More advanced options of using solar, laser electric, and laser sail propulsion, based on Breakthrough Starshot technology, are also considered. The problem is to get to the asteroid in a reasonable amount of time (and so at a reasonable distance from Earth), and yet be able to gain useful scientific information. If the craft goes too fast, it would not be able to get into orbit or land on the asteroid and would simply fly by it, moving at many asteroid diameters per second. The authors conclude that, although challenging, an encounter mission would be feasible using near-term technology.
Of course once 0.05c Starshot becomes feasible, there's a whole solar system to explore!
I recommend anyone interested read the paper which is available as a preprint from Nature (for the moment): goo.gl/cSsHoj (link shortened due to having an embedded access token). Some tantalizing points from the paper: - They constrained the aspect ratio in two dimensions to be 10:1:C, but the third dimension is unconstrained. Depending on which axis the object is rotating around, C could either be 1, or 20. Either o…
So maybe we can expect it to spin (and/or see it doesn't and speculate on the reasons for that)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
- strange aspect ratio - tensile strength (it should be cartwheeling, there is a physics theorem which means everything tends to this configuration) - large flat or concave sections. - others are reporting it's mostly metallic. I'll say it: did anyone consider an alien spaceship? The paper seems to deduce "asteroidal" by ruling out other things, rather than by a positive measurement of rock spectra, unless I've misre…
Co-author here. We obtained spectroscopic measurements of 'Oumuamua, and its surface closely matches D-type asteroids and comet nuclei, which are dark, reddish and organic-rich.
So you're saying it's a bio-ship! ldenneau confirms it's aliens!