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What is this Oumuamua alien spacecraft shit?

XYZ

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Doc Reeves

Doc Reeves 6,434

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New paper on object that describes why it might be the size it is and accelerating away from the sun: it is a frozen foam of material which might actually be weirder than an alien spaceship.

Space be fuckin weird

 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the frak is 'Oumuamua?

Oh, you remember 'Oumuamua. It caused quite a stir last year; first seen in late 2017 by the Pan-STARRS survey telescope in Hawaii, it was quickly found to have a very unusual orbit. Instead of the usual ellipse or circle around the Sun like normal solar system objects, it was found to have a hyperbolic orbit. That means it was moving too quickly to be bound to the Sun, and that, in turn, means it came from Out There. Like really out there: interstellar space, the void between the stars.

Subsequent observations confirmed it: 'Oumuamua was just passing through the solar system, with so much extra velocity (about 25 km/sec) that it was moving faster than the Sun's escape velocity. This was a one-time visitor, screaming through the solar system and heading back out into The Black once again.

That was certainly enough to make it the object of intense scrutiny. We'd never seen something from interstellar space pass through the solar system before! But what was it? At first it was classified as a comet, then an asteroid, and then maybe a comet again (this confusion is reflected in its provisional designations; at first it was A/2017 U1, for "asteroid", then C/2017 U1, for "comet", then finally I/2017 U1, for "interstellar"). It was hard to tell what it was; it was too small, faint, and far away to get good observations, and worse, it was only seen on its way out, so it was farther from us literally every day.

Then another very weird thing happened: More observations allowed a better determination of its trajectory, and it was found that it wasn't slowing down fast enough. As it moves away, the Sun's gravity pulls on it, slowing it down … but it wasn't slowing down enough.

Some force was acting on it, accelerating it very slightly. Comets are made of rock and ice, so maybe the ice was turning into gas, and as this was blown off it acted like a very gentle rocket. The problem with this is that no such venting was detected. If it were like comets in our solar system, you'd expect to see lots of carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) coming from it, but none was seen. So maybe it was some other kind of ice, like water. But again, if it is like our local comets, it would take so much water that we'd have noticed.

That's when a couple of astronomers posited something interesting: Maybe this force was radiation pressure, literally the force of sunlight hitting it and giving it a tiny push. That makes some sense, but for the math to work out with the acceleration seen, 'Oumuamua had to be flat. Like, really flat: So thin that it looked more like a solar sail, a very thin sheet of material designed to catch sunlight and accelerate. But that, in turn, meant that 'Oumuamua was artificial. As in, a spaceship.

Besides the obvious (it seems like a big leap!), I have my problems with this idea. Not much has changed with that hypothesis since I wrote that, and while I wouldn't dismiss it being an alien probe out of hand, the evidence doesn't support that conclusion, and in fact points against it.

So, I ask again: What the frak is 'Oumuamua?

A new paper has come out that might have a solution, and it's really clever. Maybe 'Oumuamua's not flat. Maybe it's fluffy.

When the astronomers speculated it might be a thin and flat, giving it a large area like a sail, they had to assume a density for it. That's because the amount of pressure sunlight exerts is very small, so if an object is massive it has to be spread out very thin and big to catch enough sunlight to accelerate it enough to match the observations. So they assumed it had some normal density like 1 – 3 grams per cubic centimeter (roughly somewhere between the density of water to rock).

The new paper turns that around. Instead of assuming a density to find the area, let's assume the size determined using normal methods is correct, use that to get an area, and from there get the density needed to match the observations.

Assuming a size for 'Oumuamua of 50 – 130 meters, what they get is a very low density: About 0.00005 grams per cc. That's incredibly low, and at first it seems ridiculously so. That's 100 times less dense than air! No solid object could have a density that low!

… so what if it's not solid?

I'm not saying it's hollow, but maybe it's really porous. Like Styrofoam or Swiss cheese, but much much holey-er. Is there anything natural like that?

It turns out, surprisingly, yes. When stars are very young, they have a huge disk of material swirling around them; it's from this material that planets form. Out far from the star, where temperatures in the disk are cold, teeny tiny grains of dust and water ice can stick together in funny shapes, creating fractals. These are branching structures that aren't regularly spaced like crystals; instead they have a structure that's called self-similar: It looks the same no matter how much you zoom in or out. I know that sounds weird, but this video will help:

We see this a lot in nature, including in snowflakes. Materials made in a fractal pattern can be very porous, and in fact out in that protoplanetary disk around a young star, physical models show that objects can grow fractally until they're as big as ‘Oumuamua, and have those extremely low densities needed to account for its weird behavior.

So 'Oumuamua doesn't have to be a spaceship. It just has to be a snowflake! A three-dimensionally constructed phenomenally porous low-density snowflake.

And in fact this actually makes sense. The fact we see something like 'Oumuamua coming from interstellar space means we can try to estimate how many of them are out there at any time. Making some simple assumptions, the numbers you get are way too high to be explained by having the galaxy filled with such beasts. It seems far more likely that objects like 'Oumuamua are relatively rare, and that means it likely came from someplace close by (if it came from farther away, the odds are even lower we'd ever see one). Working out the math, the new paper suggests it came from a nearby star, and one that's relatively young (less than 100 million years). It formed out in the disk, and got ejected somehow, likely from a planet forming nearby giving it a boost from its gravity.

I have to say, I love this. It may not be as sexy or headline-grabbing as saying it's an alien probe, but it's very clever, it uses known materials and math, and the conclusion even fits in with what we know about how planets form. That makes it pretty dang cool in its own right. If I had to bet, I'd put a lot more money on this idea being correct over 'Oumuamua being an artifact from another civilization.

It may be we'll never know; it's moving pretty rapidly relative to us, and is very far away now — it's currently over 1.6 billion kilometers away. In a year it'll be 900 million km further. So it's not like we can catch up to it anytime soon.

We'll just have to wait for another such object … which, according to this new idea, may take a long time. But we're scanning the skies with better tech, seeing deeper, seeing fainter objects, all the time now. I certainly hope we find more beasties like this one. They can tell us so much about how planets form in other star systems, which is pretty hard to figure out from dozens or hundreds of light years away. It's a lot easier when they obligingly send bits of their building materials to us.

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  • 1 year later...
Guest Lobo

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We didn't find intelligent life because we went looking for it.  Intelligent life find us though, because we went looking for it.  

Egos aside, they're out there and they've come to see us.  But we simply cannot accept it because we worry it will compromise how we see ourselves as solely special in the galaxy.  But as my grandfather used to say (borrowing in part from Carl), when we find one another...it won't mean we're less special in the eyes of God...it will actually make us more special.  Because he will have introduced us to the rest of his kingdom. 

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Restinmybones

Restinmybones 111

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I think it's possible aliens are visiting us. If so, I think they occasionally pass by and take a brief look, very much like 17th through 19th century trading ships in the Pacific would pass by inhabited islands. There is no reason for them to stop here or establish any kind of relationship. They're just curious and possibly find us amusing.

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crash_davis

crash_davis 23,132

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I found what it is!!!!

"That makes some sense, but for the math to work out with the acceleration seen, 'Oumuamua had to be flat. Like, really flat: So thin that it looked more like a solar sail, a very thin sheet of material designed to catch sunlight and accelerate. But that, in turn, meant that 'Oumuamua was artificial. As in, a spaceship."

 

Superman-Phantom-Zone.gif?ssl=1&f=1&nofb

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Guest Lobo

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I'm genuinely surprised with all his advanced knowledge about lizard aliens running our planet that Captain Fuckstick himself, "Q" hasn't chimed in on this Oumuamua alien craft until now.  Any of you fucking Qanon morons wanna chime in on why the king of conspiracy theories and alien control of our planet hasn't made one fucking comment on the first arrival of a fucking actual UFO in our solar system.  One fucking time, you can make one fucking modicum of effort to offer one shred of information for once in your fucking pathetic lives you fucking heaps of human shit?  

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OrangEngr

OrangEngr 1,035

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40 minutes ago, Lobo said:

I'm genuinely surprised with all his advanced knowledge about lizard aliens running our planet that Captain Fuckstick himself, "Q" hasn't chimed in on this Oumuamua alien craft until now.  Any of you fucking Qanon morons wanna chime in on why the king of conspiracy theories and alien control of our planet hasn't made one fucking comment on the first arrival of a fucking actual UFO in our solar system.  One fucking time, you can make one fucking modicum of effort to offer one shred of information for once in your fucking pathetic lives you fucking heaps of human shit?  

The alien shaman was going to visit, but we didn’t have organic food.

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Longhornstampede

Longhornstampede 3,191

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On 2/4/2021 at 9:15 PM, Lobo said:

I'm genuinely surprised with all his advanced knowledge about lizard aliens running our planet that Captain Fuckstick himself, "Q" hasn't chimed in on this Oumuamua alien craft until now.  Any of you fucking Qanon morons wanna chime in on why the king of conspiracy theories and alien control of our planet hasn't made one fucking comment on the first arrival of a fucking actual UFO in our solar system.  One fucking time, you can make one fucking modicum of effort to offer one shred of information for once in your fucking pathetic lives you fucking heaps of human shit?  

I think you might need a Snickers bar

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Guest Lobo

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1 hour ago, Longhornstampede said:

I think you might need a Snickers bar

I'll eat my snickers bar when the stupid people in my country go back to their rightful place...at the bottom.  

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Guest Lobo

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5150 Diver/Down.  Repeat, 5150 Diver/Down.  

All kinds of interesting information coming out about it again this week.  Science Magazine has a great write-up about it.  There's more and more experts coming out of the woodwork, 2+ years later, to say (with a modicum of scientific community cover) this does appear to be something that purposely came here and something that purposely left here.  The odds of us engaging with life from outside our planet during our lifetimes was beyond impossible, and always will be.  But the Drake Equation never really got into us being around while their realtor drove them through our neighborhood to just have a look before calling in an offer centuries from now.  

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6529/579

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pantone159

pantone159 719

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There has been at least one more extra-solar visitor, namely an interstellar 'comet' named Borisov I2/2019. Unlike 'Ouamuamua, this was was going so fast there was no doubt it was interstellar ('Ouamuamua was just over the speed limit), but this one seemed to look and act like a normal comet, at least as much as I read about it.

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thunderlounge

thunderlounge 8,026

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10 hours ago, pantone159 said:

There has been at least one more extra-solar visitor, namely an interstellar 'comet' named Borisov I2/2019. Unlike 'Ouamuamua, this was was going so fast there was no doubt it was interstellar ('Ouamuamua was just over the speed limit), but this one seemed to look and act like a normal comet, at least as much as I read about it.


Them sneaky fuckin aliens. They caught the hubbub from the radio signals and knew they drove by too damn slow. This time they picked up the pace but we’re not falling for that banana in the tail pipe bit. 

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Guest Lobo

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I didn't realize Dr. Loeb's department head of Astronomy role, came to an end a few months ago, before he publicly rebooted his discussions on the origin story of this Oumuanua phenomenon.  Seems unusual for a guy only 58 years old, but then again-the churn rate in academia at that level is fairly high.  

Anybody read his book on the matter?  https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/ET_US.jpg

 

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Guest Lobo

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On 3/9/2021 at 7:17 AM, TornACL said:

It's the cocaine talking

I wish.  Based on his most recent tweet, Don Jr. appears to have taken the rest of the nation's "holding" 

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Guest Lobo

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53 minutes ago, pantone159 said:

A new analysis suggests that 'Ouamuamua is a chunk of nitrogen ice that had been knocked off some extra-solar Pluto-like planet, and ended up our way.

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-extra-solar-oumuamua.html

And then some swamp gas reflected the light of Venus.  Please look into this here device and hold steady.  

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