Last year astronomers in Hawaii spotted an interstellar body in our solar system: a mysterious cigar-shaped object passing within 15 million miles of Earth before disappearing. They concluded that 'Oumuamua' must be an asteroid. But nothing like it had been seen before, and two scientists feel that the judgement was premature. Abraham Loeb and Shmuel Bialy of the Harvard-Smithsonian Institute for Astrophysics suggest in a new paper that Oumuamua could have been a "fully operational probe sent sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization". Various anomalies indicate it wasn't an asteroid, they say, most notably the fact that after it passed the Sun it unexpectedly sped up - suggesting that it was propelled by solar radiation. The response of fellow astronomers has however, largely been sceptical; one described the paper, submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters, as "distinctly lacking in evidence".
You decide.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
There is already ample evidence from other sources that we're being "probed." The tic-tac shaped objects that shadow our air craft carriers are quite convincing. They show no signs of any kind of propulsion and yet they can easily outpace our fighter jets and manuver in ways that would crush a human occupant.
Joe Biden … putting the Dem in dementia since (at least) 2020.
Has anybody considered that we may be the first?
And that we may be the prober's and not the probies.
The big question or desire of mankind first was.
The moon.
Now that we have been there there wasn't a generational desire to long for.
Well it seems that in a few short years we have created our new desire.
But according to some ancient astronaut theorists............
What's this silver looking ring doing on my finger?
If we developed time travel in the future would we not come back to see ourselves in the past? Maybe......
But back on topic, by the sound of it these two are pretty mainstream scientists. Why would they put their reputations on the line if they didn't think there were some serious questions about this thing that needed answering? It could be professional suicide for them if there weren't some reasonably solid thinking behind their submission.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
They are mainstream scientists with reputations, but they did NOT say it was an alien probe. They didn't even say it MIGHT BE an alien probe. What they said is that some inconsistencies in the objects trajectory could be rectified IF IT HAD SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF an alien probe. Of course, those inconsistencies may have other explanations.
If someone said "the fact that toast always falls butter side down could be explained by flying nanobots present in the butter", would you take this as proof of flying nanobots?
It's a thought experiment. It's not a conclusion. If anything, Loeb and Bialy ask us to be more open to the idea of an interstellar probe so that, if one ever DID come along, we wouldn't dismiss it as merely buttered toast.
wayfriend wrote:
+2 trek points for the obscure reference.
Obscure????? That's the best episode out of the whole franchise!
Right? [well, I don't know about "best" but definitely not obscure...that's like saying the obscure hobbit merry or the little known tribbles]
If it's a probe, it's a shitty one.
Why? cuz it's so damn SLOW.
And it didn't stop anywhere or even LOOK at anything.
I totally believe intelligent aliens exist.
I don't believe any of them have visited us...at least not since people have been smart.
If they HAVE...then I don't want to know the ones who have, cuz they're some variety of asshole.
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler] the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass. "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
wayfriend wrote:They are mainstream scientists with reputations, but they did NOT say it was an alien probe. They didn't even say it MIGHT BE an alien probe. What they said is that some inconsistencies in the objects trajectory could be rectified IF IT HAD SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF an alien probe. Of course, those inconsistencies may have other explanations.
If someone said "the fact that toast always falls butter side down could be explained by flying nanobots present in the butter", would you take this as proof of flying nanobots?
It's a thought experiment. It's not a conclusion. If anything, Loeb and Bialy ask us to be more open to the idea of an interstellar probe so that, if one ever DID come along, we wouldn't dismiss it as merely buttered toast.
I think that without having read the submission, this is pretty much what I'd expect it to be. It doesn't however make as good a story as Scientists Claim Object was Flying Saucer so that was the way it was bound to be reported. There is much truth however in the proposition that science, with it's hugely weighted sceptical approach to such data, does run the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater when the time actually comes.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
Great great Trek book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendetta_(Star_Trek)
I can't seem to make the url tag work correctly in any way. Anyway, it's Vendetta. Ties in the Doomsday Machine, the Preservers, and the Borg. There's an idiotic romance-ish thing running through it, but that's the only downside. Just great stuff!
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon
peter wrote:There is much truth however in the proposition that science, with it's hugely weighted sceptical approach to such data, does run the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater when the time actually comes.
Is there really much truth in that proposition?
I don't think so...
Science [and tists]...especially those looking at the skies and those looking at the quantum... aren't at all skeptical about data, they're voracious, gluttonous, insatiable for it.
They're skeptical about CONCLUSIONS [especially ones leapt at without good...and a goodly amount of...data].
It's right there in this topic...it was the scientists that threw the baby into the media, not the trash can.
And as Katie Mack said [[you should look up katie mack, she's kinda funny for an astrophysicist]]:
"The thing you have to understand is: scientists are perfectly happy to publish an outlandish idea if it has even the tiniest SLIVER of a chance of not being wrong."
But if it WAS aliens, might be a good thing we couldn't visit...
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler] the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass. "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
Re the Katie Mack quote; this line makes me smile. This is how it should be. And of course - I'd forgotten the cold-water fusion guy's who I always had a bit of sympathy for. Wonder what they're doing now; flipping burgers in McDonald's you think? An idea before it's time.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
Overall, the notion that an alien race would explore the universe through the use of physical, slow-moving "probes" is, if you think about it ... unintelligent.
It's not just the timespans involved. It's the size of the universe. There's not enough matter in any solar system to even begin to cover the amount of physical space that fills, say, a 10K light year radius. And anything short of blanket coverage is less than scattershot, it's astronomically insignificant. Even the notion of targeting interesting stars makes no sense, because anything you observe will be eons in the past, nor would you arrive until some future age -- and then you have to send the data back! The very concept of "exploration" makes almost no sense. (Sorry Trekkies.)
It really only begins to make sense when you have overcome the obstacles of physical travel to a significant degree.
What I am saying is this: the cigar shaped object passing through our solar system is obviously a disguise for an advanced interstellar vehicle which is used so as to appear uninteresting to our species. ;}
Oumuamua is a rock.
It entered the solar system like a rock.
It's path follows like it's a rock.
Gravity affects it like a rock.
It's a rock.
If it was a probe it would have change course to past by all the planets and
circle the earth once it got here. It's too big to be a probe. An advance
civilization would have to be very stupid to build a thing like that. It's
inefficient, it lacks propulsion. If aliens launch it just outside of the solar system
that means the aliens have FTL. So why use a massive object like that when their own ship would be better at hiding and scanning the system?
Not a probe.
What's this silver looking ring doing on my finger?
Ur Dead wrote:Oumuamua is a rock.
It entered the solar system like a rock.
It's path follows like it's a rock.
Gravity affects it like a rock.
It's a rock.
Scientific American wrote:The trajectory of 'Oumuamua deviated from that expected based on the sun's gravity alone. The deviation is small (a tenth of a percent) but highly statistically significant. Comets exhibit such a behavior when ices on their surface heat up from solar illumination and evaporate, generating thrust through the rocket effect. The extra push for 'Oumuamua could have originated by cometary outgassing if at least a tenth of its mass evaporated. But such massive evaporation would have naturally led to the appearance of a cometary tail, and none was seen. The Spitzer telescope observations also place tight limits on any carbon-based molecules or dust around 'Oumuamua and rule out the possibility that normal cometary outgassing is at play (unless it is composed of pure water). Moreover, cometary outgassing would have changed the rotation period of 'Oumuamua, and no such change was observed.
All of which implies, I'm thinking, that we understand less about comets than we perhaps thought we did. I'm for one absolutely satisfied for it not to be a probe. I have no desire to witness 'first contact'; contrary to the excitement others feel at the idea, like Hawking, I'm a believer that when it occurs it should be us that is doing the contacting.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
peter wrote:All of which implies, I'm thinking, that we understand less about comets than we perhaps thought we did.
I agree in a way... we understand most of them in a general way....but I'm also certain we'll find unique/weird things in comets and similar objects. [[just like we understand most supernovae/stellar collapses/other star-cycles pretty well---but there are plenty of rarer/odder ones we know less about and maybe some kinds we haven't seen/thought of yet]].
But THIS isn't a comet at all really...the best guestimates I've seen say it's highly probably the thing has passed by/through several star systems...and has spent at least tens of millions of years---and perhaps a billion or more...in deep space...where it was totally naked and exposed to massive amounts of cosmic rays and other things we don't know much about.
Fun, though, people are interested in these things now---and somewhere I think I saw that one of these [things big enough to spot] comes that close or closer to us every year or two.
People are watching and at least a couple groups are preparing to visit/sample one.
THAT would be AWESOME.
Not as awesome as meeting an alien...but way more awesome than the fact that people pay hundreds of millions of extra dollars a year for amethyst because it comes from Brazil instead of Minnesota, or Russian instead of Canada or Austria.
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler] the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass. "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
