Alien probe, discovered by Canadian Astronomer?

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https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappen...alien-probe-harvard-scientists-1.4893930 (NOV 6, 2018)


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A long, flat hunk of space rock that has eluded scientists since it zipped past our planet last year may, in fact, be a piece of alien technology, according to a new paper by Harvard scientists.

The paper — written by Abraham Loeb, chair of astronomy, and Shmuel Bialy, a postdoctoral fellow, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics — was submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

In it, they hypothesize that 'Oumuamua — the cigar-shaped object that briefly visited us from a distant star system — "may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization."

"I follow the maxim of Sherlock Holmes," Loeb told As It Happens host Carol Off. "When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed, and several scientists, including those who have studied 'Oumuamua, are skeptical of Loeb's conclusions.

Oumuamua was discovered in October 2017 by Canadian astronomer Robert Weryk at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy.

It is our first known interstellar visitor — and scientists have struggled to explain it.

"It's very weird. It's nothing that we have seen before," Loeb said. "It seems to have an extreme shape based on the reflectance of sunlight. It has very strange dimensions. It is at least five to 10 times longer than it is wide."

At first, researchers declared 'Oumuamua an asteroid — a large body of mostly rock with very little water. Upon closer inspection, it was later deemed a comet, which are made up of mostly dust and ice.

But 'Oumuamua isn't behaving like a comet either.

What's boosting 'Oumuamua?
For one, it has deviated from the trajectory it was expected to travel given the sun's gravitational pull.

A comet can do that when it releases gases, producing a rocket effect known as outgassing. But 'Oumuamua doesn't have the telltale comet tail associated with outgassing.

What's more, outgassing should have sent 'Oumuamua spinning, but no rotation has been detected.

So what sent this big mystery hunk veering through space at an accelerated speed off of its natural course?

"There is something pushing it in addition to gravity," Loeb said.

"The possibility that we are suggesting is that it's sunlight — the radiation from the sun is giving a push, and in order for that to be effective, it needs to be very thin."

So thin, he says, it might be artificial.

Sailing on sunlight
One thing that fits that description is a light sail, also known as a solar sail — a type of propulsion that allows a spacecraft to move under the force of sunlight radiation reflected on large mirrors.

Essentially, a light-sail spacecraft sails through space on the sunlight.

Loeb is the chair of the advisory committee for Breakthrough Starshot, an organization that is working to launch a light sail to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri.

'Oumuamua, he says, may be an alien version of that very same technology.

"This could be space debris that is a piece of equipment. It could be defunct. It may not be operational," Loeb said.

"But at the same time, it could be leftover space debris from another civilization, just because it's so peculiar and nothing like the rocks that we see in the solar system."

'No reason to believe' alien theory: scientist
Weryk, the Canadian scientist who discovered 'Oumuamua and has researched it, has cast doubt on Loeb's extracurricular theory.

"There is no reason to believe 'Oumuamua is anything but a natural object (a comet from another solar system) based on the observations that were obtained by the team I worked with," Weryk told Motherboard, Vice's science site.

"It is true though, that there really is a lot we do not know about interstellar comets, and it really will take us finding more of them to better understand them. This may take a while, but now that we know they exist, we are looking more closely at each new [near-Earth object] discovery we make."

Arts Technica writer Eric Berger suggested that news outlets have seized on Loeb's unproven theory because of its "classic clickbait headline."

But as for Loeb, he says he's motivated only by curiosity and the pursuit of truth.

"I don't play it based on what I expect my colleagues to say, I do it based on my interests," he said. "And the fact that the public is interested, that is a benefit."

Written by Sheena Goodyear with files from Nicole Mortillaro. Interview with Abraham Loeb produced by Tracy Fuller.
 
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Oh just saw it on the news tonight, hadn't read it here first. My bad for the double post on the subject.
 
Originally Posted by StevieC
Oh just saw it on the news tonight, hadn't read it here first. My bad for the double post on the subject.


No problem I do it all the time.
 
I just threw on CBC News Network because nothing else was on and I happened to catch the story.... I thought it was new.
 
"Ever since it was first spotted in 2017, the interstellar asteroid known as Oumuamua, meaning "scout" or "messenger" in Hawaiian, has garnered much interest among astronomers and the public...

...But, but, but: More information is needed before making any firm conclusions about Oumuamua. Loeb himself told NBC News, for example, that "It is impossible to guess the purpose behind Oumuamua without more data." Other researchers have cast further doubt on the alien origin hypothesis with observations from 2017 showing that there were no signals coming from it to indicate it was communicating in any way, per Mashable.

Although the paper is online already, it is pre-peer review and provides evidence of an anomaly that could allow for the possibility that Oumuamua is of alien origin, but does not prove that this is the case.

In addition, jumping to the conclusion that this is an alien spacecraft or a light sail, which is tempting from online news headlines, is akin to grabbing hold of the least likely explanation. After all, scientists are confident that alien life exists, but the most likely scenario for finding it is the discovery of microbial life on another planet, rather than an encounter with an alien spaceship traveling from another solar system.

In an interview with NBC, Coryn Bailer-Jones, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, summarized the reaction in the broader science community. "In science," he told the network, "we must ask ourselves, 'Where is the evidence?' not 'Where is the lack of evidence so that I can fit in any hypothesis that I like?'"

Via Twitter, Ohio State astrophysicist Paul Sutter bluntly refuted the study's claims. "No, 'Oumuamua is not an alien spaceship, and the authors of the paper insult honest scientific inquiry to even suggest it," he stated."

via Axios
 
Originally Posted by MolaKule
"Ever since it was first spotted in 2017, the interstellar asteroid known as Oumuamua, meaning "scout" or "messenger" in Hawaiian, has garnered much interest among astronomers and the public...

...But, but, but: More information is needed before making any firm conclusions about Oumuamua. Loeb himself told NBC News, for example, that "It is impossible to guess the purpose behind Oumuamua without more data." Other researchers have cast further doubt on the alien origin hypothesis with observations from 2017 showing that there were no signals coming from it to indicate it was communicating in any way, per Mashable.

Although the paper is online already, it is pre-peer review and provides evidence of an anomaly that could allow for the possibility that Oumuamua is of alien origin, but does not prove that this is the case.

In addition, jumping to the conclusion that this is an alien spacecraft or a light sail, which is tempting from online news headlines, is akin to grabbing hold of the least likely explanation. After all, scientists are confident that alien life exists, but the most likely scenario for finding it is the discovery of microbial life on another planet, rather than an encounter with an alien spaceship traveling from another solar system.

In an interview with NBC, Coryn Bailer-Jones, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, summarized the reaction in the broader science community. "In science," he told the network, "we must ask ourselves, 'Where is the evidence?' not 'Where is the lack of evidence so that I can fit in any hypothesis that I like?'"

Via Twitter, Ohio State astrophysicist Paul Sutter bluntly refuted the study's claims. "No, 'Oumuamua is not an alien spaceship, and the authors of the paper insult honest scientific inquiry to even suggest it," he stated."

via Axios


I find Tabby's star much more fascinating. Basically it's dimmed by as much as 22% over a few years. The fun theory is that some alien civilization is building a Dyson's sphere or swarm. But the more likely theory is that it's just dust. Just google alien megastructure for the latest.
 
Originally Posted by CT8
I saw it on Star Trek 15 years ago.






I saw it on Star Trek 51 years ago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doomsday_Machine_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)
 
Has anyone seen the mycelium drive ?
Tech advised by Mushroom hunter Paul Stamets ?

Give me the drum without me having to watch star trek ?
 
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