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The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

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Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

#111

Post by thewakalix »

KingFelix wrote: post #106
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #105

>> Loeb was a once-respected scientist who made important contributions to astrophysics and cosmology, particularly when it came to black holes and the first stars. But his work on extraterrestrial signatures continues to be largely unappreciated by the community — a position as justifiable as ignoring the comparable idea of Russell’s teapot — and rather than address their scientific objections, he’s stopped listenin…

I agree and no longer read his articles, and I don't think he provides any value. He often uses statements like this to attack targets, he did the same thing with the last article that came across my news feed for Roger Penrose. >>Hundreds of scientists have pointed this out to Penrose — repeatedly and consistently over a period of more than 10 years — who continues to ignore the field and plow ahead with his content…

I think you may have meant to link to this page instead?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/10/08/no-r...

Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

#112

Post by [deleted] »

giantrobot wrote: post #46
sandworm101 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His battle is only partly about Oumuamua. That is just a vehicle for his arguments. The real issue is the bias against life detection experiments generally. Want to sample soil on mars and measure oxygen absorption? Great. We will put your sensor on the next rover. Want to pour nutrients on that soil and see if anything eats it? Go away you crazy person. Want to detect methane in an exoplanet atmosphere? Here is your…

Science money is very limited. Space science money more limited. Space science money to get components on rovers yet more limited. Telescope time is also limited. Mission time on remote probes is also limited. So you devise an experiment to measure oxygen absorption that uses a probe's existing mass spectrometer. Your experiment doesn't cut into the probe's mass budget so it basically is just a scheduling issue. If y…

[deleted]

Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

#113

Post by jula432vdf »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #105

>> Loeb was a once-respected scientist who made important contributions to astrophysics and cosmology, particularly when it came to black holes and the first stars. But his work on extraterrestrial signatures continues to be largely unappreciated by the community — a position as justifiable as ignoring the comparable idea of Russell’s teapot — and rather than address their scientific objections, he’s stopped listenin…

I don't think many realize the seriousness of the situation. If the asteroid is just a rock, nothing happens, everything is just fine, we can continue to be the apex predator of Sol system.

But if anybody is wrong and oumuamua was in fact an alien device looking for us (intelligent life), almost certainly it has found us. What happens next is entirely out of human hands, unless we can realize that event.

Maybe is nothing more than some kind of probe or long range satellite, but it could be a scout ship, or an early warning sensor, and we're just in course to meet the rest of the hardware from where oumuamua came from.

Is really rational just plainly deny the chance of that rock being pure luck of not having found a big fleet of some interestellar things and having to figure out if they are friendly or not as they approach the planet?

Probably the space force and the whole stuff many countries are sending to all the solar system since 2018 are just a coincidence, or may be other people is also worried about what happens next if oumuamua was not just a weird rock.

Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

#114

Post by cletus »

I find it kind of sad how desperate people get for certain outcomes, in this case proof of extraterrestrial life.

Of course we have limited observations of this object. But that doesn't prove anything. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

But here's where the desperation comes in: false equivalence. Like we have limited observations so you can't prove it ISN'T an artifact of alien life. Like the outcomes of it being artificial and natural in origin are treated as equal.

It just seems like the worst application and misunderstanding of the anthropic principle ever.

No evidence that it's artificial doesn't mean it's natural. It just means there's no evidence of it being artificial. But absent any evidence, natural origin is the most likely explanation.

Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

#115

Post by [deleted] »

Damorian wrote: post #50

I'm just saying, if I wanted to probe every solar system in the galaxy, I'd build a craft with extreme geometry that would fly very close to stars and accelerate for a gravity assist before flying toward the next target star. So it would look exactly like what we saw.

[deleted]

Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

#116

Post by incompatible »

Damorian wrote: post #65
throw1234651234 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would have to identify the star that Oumua is going to for that theory to work. Seems like it should be pretty easy to know if it's going to the nearest star (or coming from one), and it's not originated from or going to Alpha Centauri. The next question is whether or not there is some other logical path that defines logical gravity assists to visit as many stars as possible - nothing like that has been put forwa…

I don't think it's safe to assume it would come from/go to the nearest stars to us, as the flight path might need extreme changes that aren't in the fuel budget, especially given its already very high speed.

Very high speed compared to Solar System objects perhaps, but I expect it would still take an enormous amount of time to reach another star.

Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

#117

Post by brofallon »

I guess I don't understand what the fundamental disagreement is here. Most astronomers believe the probability that Oumuamua was an alien visitor is very small. Loeb's argument is that the probability may be a bit larger. But we'll (very likely) never actually know which it was, so the disagreement is about the unknown likelihood of a single observed event. It just seems obvious that we'll have to settle for "probably a funnily-shaped rock, but there's a small chance it was something more interesting" and live with that.

Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

#118

Post by ryanmercer »

ckozlowski wrote: post #4

I'd gotten the impression that Loeb isn't trying to convince the public and scientific community that it was an alien probe so much as is he trying to show it could have been. I think is agenda is to get the community looking for these things more often, perhaps out of some disappointment that if it had been an actual probe (a la "Rendezvous with Rama"), we'd already have missed it. Whether it's worth bending the sci…

>I'd gotten the impression that Loeb isn't trying to convince the public and scientific community that it was an alien probe so much as is he trying to show it could have been.

Same, he even went on Planetary Radio on January 27th and said something to the effect of "show me a plausible model that shows this wasn't some sort of craft using a solar sail to accelerate out of the system, I'm happy to be proven wrong".

https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/0127-2021-avi-loeb...

Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

#119

Post by ryanmercer »

untoxicness wrote: post #2

"That Harvard Astronomer" is Avi Loeb. Loeb was recently a guest on the Lex Fridman podcast where he talked about Oumuamua amongst other things. [0] I found his view on the subject fascinating and his perspective on science refreshing. [0] https://lexfridman.com/avi-loeb/

See also his appearance on Planetary Radio by the he Planetary Society this week https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/0127-2021-avi-loeb...

Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer

#120

Post by catlifeonmars »

calibas wrote: post #44
eightails wrote: post #5

How hard is it for people to just admit that we probably have inadequate evidence to reach a solid conclusion. This was the first object of its kind and we had very limited observations of it. From what I've read, none of the hypotheses regarding the measured acceleration (e.g. outgassing vs manufactured solar sail) can really be backed up in any substantial way. So it seems disengenuous to get into vitriolic argumen…

I think it's precisely because we don't know that people have such strong opinions. People get to fill in what they want to believe, then argue a point that can never really be proven wrong or right.

Exactly. And in the face of ambiguity, the payoff for having a strong opinion can be fairly high because you cannot be proven wrong.
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