Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
quantamagazine.org
Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
1–10 of 118 posts
Re: Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
#2This article is excellent. I wondered about this exact issue before. Prograde/forward acceleration only from outgassing from a constant surface just seemed difficult to visualize. It would make some sense for an object with minimal spin since the side facing the sun would heat up more than the rest of the surface and so you'd have an outward acceleration primarily from the rear, but when you're spinning how could the outgassing not also [strongly] affect that spin, excepting some highly improbable scenario where your axis of spin is directly perpendicular to the sun and the 'thing' is perfectly balanced, like a propeller facing the rear of a plane?
I also wish more media ran articles like this. It's fun to let your imagination run wild, apply a bit of math and visualization, and also learn lots in the process. And there's no division. Even if somebody says something completely wrong, people can have fun correcting and adjusting their views like a collaborative project instead of some competition to 'prove' your subjective interpretation right, as so many other topics devolve into.
Re: Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
#3I'm still convinced this is an alien probe. I mean look at that trajectory. 0.163 AU from Earth - what are the odds? The spinning is irrelevant surely - I mean, it's all relative, so as far as ’Oumuamua is concerned, we're spinning. Maybe it was spinning that way to stay aligned with a distant companion for communication.
Re: Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
#4I'll ask what everyone is thinking but won't say. If the acceleration is in fact being caused by artificial thrusters, what kind of thruster configuration can produce prograde acceleration while maintaining the observed tumble? And why would someone engineer this configuration?
Re: Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
#5’Oumuamua, I’ve come to bargain!
Re: Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
#6Based on the comments in this thread, I'm sure this will soon be an episode of 'Ancient Aliens' on the "History" Channel. If it isn't already.
Re: Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
#7I'm still convinced this is an alien probe. I mean look at that trajectory. 0.163 AU from Earth - what are the odds? The spinning is irrelevant surely - I mean, it's all relative, so as far as ’Oumuamua is concerned, we're spinning. Maybe it was spinning that way to stay aligned with a distant companion for communication.
What’s special about 0.163 AU? Does it have a mathematical significance?
Re: Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
#8I'm still convinced this is an alien probe. I mean look at that trajectory. 0.163 AU from Earth - what are the odds? The spinning is irrelevant surely - I mean, it's all relative, so as far as ’Oumuamua is concerned, we're spinning. Maybe it was spinning that way to stay aligned with a distant companion for communication.
Two more of them, and I'd say you have an excellent case.
Re: Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
#9It's too bad we're not ready to launch probes to visit and explore such transient objects at a moment's notice.
Re: Interstellar Visitor Found to Be Unlike a Comet or an Asteroid
#10I'm still convinced this is an alien probe. I mean look at that trajectory. 0.163 AU from Earth - what are the odds? The spinning is irrelevant surely - I mean, it's all relative, so as far as ’Oumuamua is concerned, we're spinning. Maybe it was spinning that way to stay aligned with a distant companion for communication.
What’s special about 0.163 AU? Does it have a mathematical significance?
AU stands for Astronomical unit, and it's used for measuring distances in space smaller than light-years. 1 AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. 0.163 AU tells you how close it came to earth.