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from the I'm-not-saying-it-was-aliens dept.
Two Harvard astronomers have suggested that the interstellar object that passed through our solar system in late 2017 and early 2018 could have been part of an alien spacecraft.
Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb, two astronomers from the Harvard Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, suggested the cigar-shaped object — given the Hawaiian name 'Oumuamua, which NASA notes "means a messenger from afar arriving first" — could have been a discarded light sail of extra-terrestrial origin, perhaps sent here on purpose.
From the paper:
We explain the excess acceleration of `Oumuamua away from the sun as the result of the force that the sunlight exerts on its surface. For this force to explain measured excess acceleration, the object needs to be extremely thin, of order a fraction of a millimeter in thickness but tens of meters in size. This makes the object lightweight for its surface area and allows it to act as a light-sail. Its origin could be either natural (in the interstellar medium or proto-planetary disks) or artificial (as a probe sent for a reconnaissance mission into the inner region of the solar system)."
It's not hard to find plenty of the usual skepticism, much of which seems to center on whether or not the object outgassed on the way into our solar system, and it's shape. The gist of the Harvard paper seems to be that the object would need to be extremely thin and not at all like the rocky artists rendering that has commonly been used in stories to date.
What do Soylentils think of this latest twist?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Fnord666 on Wednesday November 07 2018, @11:25AM (8 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @01:54PM (2 children)
See headline.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @04:54PM (1 child)
Click here to discover the three shocking things they don't want you to know about Betteridge's law of headlines.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday November 08 2018, @01:13AM
And then click here to reveal the one secret trick they won't let us talk about that invalidates Betteridge.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday November 07 2018, @03:26PM (4 children)
If there are intelligent aliens who know about our existence and are interested in us, you can be sure they are likely to be far more technologically and scientifically advanced than we are. The big question is, would they want us to know about them, or not, and I would guess not, for several reasons. It would be a trivial matter for them to keep us unaware of their existence while observing us in as much detail as they wish.
If they wanted us to know they exist, they could surely do that too, in much more plain ways than an interstellar probe that was only here for a short time. It beggars belief that they could want to remain hidden and yet be so clumsy as to send a probe that is so huge and slow, gets unnecessarily close to the sun thus increasing the chances it will be detected, and then can't do more than take a quick look. They would see very little, and we might see the probe.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by legont on Wednesday November 07 2018, @06:36PM
They would definitely don't want to contact us simply because any contact would immediately trigger all out nuclear war. As per the rock, it could be a long lost part of early ship - junk nobody bothered to collect.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:44PM
Devil's advocate: maybe they sent these probes out a long time ago, before we began broadcasting radio static into the abyss. In that case they might not have known we existed, and a probe like this could be a cheap way of scouting planets for resources and signs of life. Staying hidden might just not be a high priority.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:10PM (1 child)
>"It would be a trivial matter for them to keep us unaware of their existence while observing us in as much detail as they wish."
That is probably false.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @11:17PM
Trivial for us? No.
Trivial for a species that has mastered interstellar flight? Probably.