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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: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @02:54PM (1 child)
It doesn't really matter what we think, it matters what we know. And we don't know anything. Which is why somebody should go take a look. :-)
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Wednesday November 07 2018, @06:30PM
IIUC, it was on a hyperbolic orbit, so it hasn't been sticking around. Investigating it from close up would be extremely difficult, as you need solar escape velocity. And since it keeps getting further away, and less well lit, investigating it remotely isn't likely to provide new information.
The time to launch an investigation mission is before peri-sol.
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