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Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier

#41

Post by davrosthedalek »

xyzzyz wrote: post #38
ekimekim wrote: post #23

> 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.

Yes, if Charles Darwin would publish a book today, with a focus on a layman reader, and then give interviews, instead of publishing his findings in journals, I would be skeptical.

Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier

#42

Post by spenczar5 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #16
sandworm101 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need the telescope. There is an effort to discover interstellar objects in old data, which is largely a matter of spotting faint objects and calculating thier orbits...ie coding.

Can you link us to where we can contribute?

Another place: you could get in touch with the folks at ALeRCE (http://alerce.science/). They publish access to a live stream of data from the ZTF project. We found the closest asteroid ever 4 days ago from the ZTF data stream: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/ztf-finds-closest-known-a...

Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier

#43

Post by twirlip »

api wrote: post #29
Sharlin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, because of the most obvious reason that comes to mind: it's way too small and way too far away! Even when it was discovered, near the perihelion of its hyberbolic orbit, it was small enough that we had no way whatsoever actually resolving it as anything else than a point of light. We could only guesstimate its rough shape by measuring its light curve—how its brightness changes as it rotates—and then simulating wh…

Could the JWST see it? It goes up soon.

For a broad value of soon.

Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier

#45

Post by gfodor »

sandworm101 wrote: post #7

If 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…

If we put half the energy we use detecting more interstellar objects to building interstellar spacecraft we'd be able to fly to one to find out what it is.

If we put half the energy we use building interstellar spacecraft on neural implants we'd not worry about flying somewhere else to satiate our desires.

If we put half the energy we use working on neural implants on creating affordable housing and food production we wouldn't have people chasing after dreams of perceptual bliss.

If we put half the energy we put into affordable housing and food production into figuring out what Oumuamua was, we'd discover aliens and they'd solve all our problems.

Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier

#47

Post by kentonv »

My pet theory (which is not intended to be taken too seriously) is that it is indeed a discarded light sail, and that light sail in particular was used to transport a Von Neumann probe which detached at some point after the object entered our solar system but before we first observed it. This detachment, in addition to leaving the sail tumbling, would have changed its trajectory, meaning our estimation of which direction the object originally came from is incorrect. In any case, the probe is now busy replicating, perhaps on the surface of Mercury. In a few years an army of robots will launch from there and invade the rest of the solar system!

Realistically, though, it's too much of a coincidence that such a probe would first arrive so soon after we gained the ability to conceive of it.

Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier

#49

Post by jameshart »

kentonv wrote: post #47

My pet theory (which is not intended to be taken too seriously) is that it is indeed a discarded light sail, and that light sail in particular was used to transport a Von Neumann probe which detached at some point after the object entered our solar system but before we first observed it. This detachment, in addition to leaving the sail tumbling, would have changed its trajectory, meaning our estimation of which direc…

Which forces the logical conclusion that this isn't the first such probe, obviously.

Re: Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier

#50

Post by [deleted] »

sandworm101 wrote: post #7

If 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…

[deleted]
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