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Was Oumuamua an Alien Spacecraft?

#1
Yazata Offline
These astronomers, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory tell us that Oumuamua (the peculiar cigar-shaped interstellar object that moved quickly through our solar system recently) was observed to be accelerating very slightly. The slight acceleration noted has been observed with comets that eject volatile gases, but Oumuamua wasn't a comet.

They note that light-sails can produce accelerations on the scale noted. So they speculate about the possibility that Oumuamua was an alien light-sail sent from another solar system and perhaps targeted at ours.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11490.pdf

Edit: I just saw that SS already posted about this on MR's Baja California UFO thread. Oh well, it deserves a thread of its own.
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#2
Zinjanthropos Offline
Let's say there is/was/will be other intelligent life forms in the universe. I know there's a Drake equation which I assume would be universal but judging by the immensity of the universe I'm thinking the odds are probably pretty good that Earth comes and goes without anyone ever noticing or if we are noticed and nothing more can be done .
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#3
C C Offline
Given that it has an uncertain 230 to 1,000 meter range for its length and only 115 to 548 for its width, it's potentially undersized for even low-end solar sail travel within interplanetary distances (much less interstellar).

Before Oumuamua got its official tag, Rama[*] was actually proposed as a name for it. Seems that the initial imaginative comparison just can't be relinquished. But unlike Rama it's flat and tumbling rather than cylindrical and rotating. There is the aspect of where Oumuamua would likewise have shown similar disinterest in the Solar System. Apart from Rama using the latter for a slingshot maneuver, whereas Oumuamua passed indifferently right on through with its unaltered trajectory.

Another potential name for the interstellar visitor could have been Bronson Beta. If Oumuamua had arrived as a pair of rogue planets instead of a comet slash small asteroid sized single. Wink

- - - -

[*] Rendezvous With Rama: . . . initially mistaken for an asteroid categorised as "31/439". It is detected by astronomers in the year 2131 while it is still outside the orbit of Jupiter. Its speed (100,000 km/h) and the angle of its trajectory clearly indicate it is not on a long orbit around the sun, but comes from interstellar space. The astronomers' interest is further piqued when they realise the asteroid has an extremely rapid rotation period of 4 minutes and is exceptionally large. It is named Rama after the Hindu god, and an unmanned space probe dubbed Sita is launched from the Mars moon Phobos to intercept and photograph it. The resulting images reveal that Rama is a perfect cylinder, 20 kilometres (12 mi) in diameter and 54 kilometres (34 mi) long, and almost completely featureless, making this humankind's first encounter with an alien spacecraft.

~
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#4
Angelina Offline
(Nov 6, 2018 04:46 PM)C C Wrote: Given that it has an uncertain 230 to 1,000 meter range for its length and only 115 to 548 for its width, it's potentially undersized for even low-end solar sail travel within interplanetary distances (much less interstellar).

Before Oumuamua got its official tag, Rama
[*] was actually proposed as a name for it. Seems that the initial imaginative comparison just can't be relinquished. But unlike Rama it's flat and tumbling rather than cylindrical and rotating. There is the aspect of where Oumuamua would likewise have shown similar disinterest in the Solar System. Apart from Rama using the latter for a slingshot maneuver, whereas Oumuamua passed indifferently right on through with its unaltered trajectory.

Another potential name for the interstellar visitor could have been Bronson Beta. If Oumuamua had arrived as a pair of rogue planets instead of a comet slash small asteroid sized single. Wink

- - - -

[*]Rendezvous With Rama: . . . initially mistaken for an asteroid categorised as "31/439". It is detected by astronomers in the year 2131 while it is still outside the orbit of Jupiter. Its speed (100,000 km/h) and the angle of its trajectory clearly indicate it is not on a long orbit around the sun, but comes from interstellar space. The astronomers' interest is further piqued when they realise the asteroid has an extremely rapid rotation period of 4 minutes and is exceptionally large. It is named Rama after the Hindu god, and an unmanned space probe dubbed Sita is launched from the Mars moon Phobos to intercept and photograph it. The resulting images reveal that Rama is a perfect cylinder, 20 kilometres (12 mi) in diameter and 54 kilometres (34 mi) long, and almost completely featureless, making this humankind's first encounter with an alien spacecraft.

~
 Hi, where does that sci fi  story about Rama come from? And who said it should be named after it? 
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#5
C C Offline
(Nov 6, 2018 09:28 PM)Angelina Wrote: Hi, where does that sci fi  story about Rama come from?

Welcome to Scivillage, Angelina. "Rendezvous With Rama" was written by Arthur C Clarke, published circa 1973.

Quote:And who said it should be named after it? 


A wikipedia entry states that "Before the official name was decided upon, the name Rama was suggested...".

However, it doesn't clarify whether that was done by a member of the Pan-STARRS1 telescope team itself or just inferred from the general, countless sources at large bringing it up belatedly.

Among the latter, Corey S. Powell stating: "New illustrations of interstellar asteroid Oumuamua are not going to do anything to dissuade those who think it should have been named 'Rama' instead."

NASA's APOD noting the comparison after the official naming had occurred: "Oumuamua is also intriguing, however, because it has unexpected parallels to Rama, a famous fictional interstellar spaceship created by the late science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke."

We do know that Olivier Hainaut did mention Rama, and thereby there might have some light-hearted banter taking place with other Pan-STARRS1 members.

http://ifa.hawaii.edu/info/press-releases/Oumuamua/

EXCERPT: "We had to act quickly," explains team member Olivier Hainaut from ESO in Garching, Germany. "`Oumuamua had already passed its closest point to the Sun and was heading back into interstellar space. This felt very much like the beginning of the famous science fiction story, Rendezvous with Rama."


https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2017/11/...-oumuamua/

EXCERPT: Then came the paper from Karen Meech (University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, where the object was first detected with the Pan-STARRS1 telescope). Drawing on data from telescopes around the world, Meech’s team has been able to characterize our first nearby object from another stellar system, with equally delightful results. For it turns out that ‘Oumuamua (pronounced oh MOO-uh MOO-uh) has an unusual axis ratio, being about ten times longer than it is wide. Jim Benford couldn’t resist suggesting I show a cover from "Rendezvous with Rama" depicting just such an axis ratio, and I agreed wholeheartedly.

Any science fiction fan familiar with Clarke (and are there any who aren’t?) will have fun with the similarities, but how much do we actually know about ‘Oumuamua? Meech’s team based its conclusions on the object’s shape on the fact that its brightness changed so dramatically as it rotated (spinning on its axis every 7.3 hours). Lance Benner, who specializes in radar imaging of near-Earth and main-belt asteroids at JPL, calls the axis ratio here ‘truly extraordinary.’ We know of no Solar System objects elongated more than 3 times longer than they are wide.

~
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#6
Secular Sanity Offline
(Nov 6, 2018 05:28 AM)Yazata Wrote: These astronomers, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory tell us that Oumuamua (the peculiar cigar-shaped interstellar object that moved quickly through our solar system recently) was observed to be accelerating very slightly. The slight acceleration noted has been observed with comets that eject volatile gases, but Oumuamua wasn't a comet.

They note that light-sails can produce accelerations on the scale noted. So they speculate about the possibility that Oumuamua was an alien light-sail sent from another solar system and perhaps targeted at ours.    

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11490.pdf

Edit: I just saw that SS already posted about this on MR's Baja California UFO thread. Oh well, it deserves a thread of its own.

And he’s not backing down.

"Many people expected once there would be this publicity, I would back down," Loeb says. "If someone shows me evidence to the contrary, I will immediately back down."

"It changes your perception on reality, just knowing that we’re not alone," he continued. "We are fighting on borders, on resources. … It would make us feel part of planet Earth as a civilization rather than individual countries voting on Brexit."

Even as his theories attracted attention around the world, despite his colleagues’ criticism, Loeb says he’s not afraid of any possible repercussions for spreading his theories and wears it as a badge of honor, showing his unorthodox approach to science.

"The mainstream approach [is] you can sort of drink your coffee in the morning and expect what you will find later on. It’s a stable lifestyle, but for me it resembles more the lifestyle of a business person rather than scientists," he told the newspaper.

Good attitude, right? He looks a little bit like Jeff Goldblum, doesn't he?  Big Grin
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#7
Zinjanthropos Offline
MR may agree with me here.... if recognizing ET is hard should we encounter it then can we we know what they fly?
. Is Oumuamua a UFO by definition?
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