To start playing aliens throw us a snowball. What would have happend when Oumuamua would hit our planet?
Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier
31–40 of 236 posts
Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier
#32When the US Gov Officially released a video, why hath talk about Oumua?
Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier
#33I don't get it. Why don't we image this thing directly?
We have! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ʻOumuamua But it’s small and moving away from us fast. We couldn’t build anything in time that could catch up to it and image it closer.
Politically no. When we first saw it, technically maybe yes. In an all stops pulled scenario, an improvised rocket could have been sent and at last had a fly-by look.
Now... doubtful it could be done at all.
Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier
#34And on far-off Earth, Dr. Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had wakened from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain: The Ramans do everything in threes.
We just have to hope there is at least one more
Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier
#35> Asked if there is a clear leading candidate explanation for 'Oumuamua's acceleration, Loeb referred Live Science to a not-yet-released book he authored called "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth," due for publication in January. I don't know enough about the science to have an informed opinion, but it seems to me that if the main skeptic is also selling a book based in their exciting…
First sign? The first was probably the irrigation canals spotted on mars. Then repeating radio signals. The face on mars. Tabby's star. Each had their day as the first sign. The first real detection won't be some slight variance that we debate for years but solid evidence. If Oumuamua was a triangle, that would be solid evidence. It isn't aliens until it is.
Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier
#36I don't get it. Why don't we image this thing directly?
We have! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ʻOumuamua But it’s small and moving away from us fast. We couldn’t build anything in time that could catch up to it and image it closer.
> We couldn’t build anything
We could, but we didn’t.
Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier
#37I don't get it. Why don't we image this thing directly?
We have! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ʻOumuamua But it’s small and moving away from us fast. We couldn’t build anything in time that could catch up to it and image it closer.
Interesting.
The trajectory of O'uamuamua seems almost.. designed to scout the Sun's habitable zone.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/Ou...
Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier
#38> Asked if there is a clear leading candidate explanation for 'Oumuamua's acceleration, Loeb referred Live Science to a not-yet-released book he authored called "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth," due for publication in January. I don't know enough about the science to have an informed opinion, but it seems to me that if the main skeptic is also selling a book based in their exciting…
With this approach, you’d be skeptical too if Charles Darwin was also selling a book with his exciting alternate theory on the origin of species.
Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier
#39If we put half the energy we use up arguing about Oumuamua into detecting more interstellar objects we would have the data to end this debate. I'm a fan of the pragmatic mathematical approach. This was the first thing detected. The chances that the first result is also any sort of outlier are very slim. Detect and track some more of these objects. I'd bet good money that Oumuamua's motion is very explainable once we…
Uh, the highest-funded terrestrial telescope project of the last 10 years has been the Rubin Observatory, which is intended to detect more interstellar objects (along with two other large goals - variability studies and galactic rotation curve studies to understand dark energy).
The effort spent arguing about Oumuamua is a tiny, microscopic fraction of grant money in astronomy.
(I work on software to detect interstellar objects)
Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier
#40To start playing aliens throw us a snowball. What would have happend when Oumuamua would hit our planet?
If it was composed of solid hydrogen then very little. It would evaporate at slightest touch of a planets atmosphere. Maybe even bounce off it.
For solid hydrogen any planet with atmosphere is like a ball of hot molten lava for a snowball.
Edit: I was half expecting there to be a video of throwing snowballs into lava, Internet does not have it all, yet.