[HN Gopher] The Uncensored Guide to 'Oumuamua, Aliens, and That ...
___________________________________________________________________
The Uncensored Guide to 'Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard
Astronomer
Author : mellosouls
Score : 77 points
Date : 2021-01-29 12:53 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.forbes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.forbes.com)
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| How do we jump to the conclusion of aliens with so little
| information? Why not God sent it?
| saberdancer wrote:
| Oumuamua changed velocity in an unexplained way. This was not
| expected, but there is an explanation that the object is
| outgassing and it increases it's velocity.
|
| This, along with strange shape made the object interesting for
| ET speculation.
| asidiali wrote:
| If it comes flying in on an asteroid sized spaceship...what's
| the difference?
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I suppose that we could imagine any kind of nonsense. We call
| that fiction not science.
| nix23 wrote:
| Spaceship or Gods poo makes a difference i think ;)
| dysfunction wrote:
| "Asteroid-sized" in this case isn't all that big- 100m long
| is a similar size to the ISS, though it probably masses a lot
| more.
| criddell wrote:
| Nobody has really jumped to that conclusion. I don't think the
| author of this article has represented Loeb's views or public
| statements entirely fairly.
|
| Sean Carroll recently interviewed him and if you listen to
| that, I think you will come away with a very different idea of
| who Loeb is and what he is saying.
| wsay wrote:
| I think the inadequate data is the key point, especially as we've
| only seen two of these types of things so far - the best we can
| probably hope for now is to go "This object seemed odd in several
| ways - let's increase our observations for these kinds of objects
| and see what the majority turn out to be and importantly if we
| encounter anything which is odd in similar ways which we can
| identify".
|
| So when the question is posed "What is a responsible scientist to
| do in this situation?" I think the answer is clearly, accept it
| as an "out-there" but currently not disprovable hypothesis, and
| if you feel strongly that it's incorrect, dedicate effort and
| time to showing with evidence (at least quantifiable empirical
| evidence) that this is the case, ideally in a published and peer-
| reviewed paper.
| Tepix wrote:
| I find the the unnecessary use of "uncensored" to be offending.
| nix23 wrote:
| It looks like forbes needs to label it like that, bloomberg
| probably calls it premium account ;)
| voldacar wrote:
| The last two paragraphs are so incredibly lame. The goal of a
| scientist's life isn't to be "respected by the community."
| Science and reality don't care what the community thinks and
| never have.
|
| I have no idea if Loeb is right or not. I think for Bayesian
| reasons (prior is Borisov) he is probably wrong, but there is so
| little data and Oumuamua is certainly super weird. But this
| author is a total hack, making arguments from authority and
| mainstream-ness. If a scientist stops making relevant arguments
| and instead starts talking about the "consensus" of the
| "scientific community", run the opposite direction
| ckozlowski wrote:
| I'd gotten the impression that Loeb isn't trying to convince the
| public and scientific community that it was an alien probe so
| much as is he trying to show it could have been.
|
| I think is agenda is to get the community looking for these
| things more often, perhaps out of some disappointment that if it
| had been an actual probe (a la "Rendezvous with Rama"), we'd
| already have missed it.
|
| Whether it's worth bending the science to fit this narrative is
| of course, questionable.
| hh3k0 wrote:
| > I'd gotten the impression that Loeb isn't trying to convince
| the public and scientific community that it was an alien probe
| so much as is he trying to show it could have been.
|
| That was also my impression. A lot of scientists (rightfully)
| make fun of the dogmatic view that it must have been an alien
| probe, but fail to realize their view -- that it must have been
| _anything but_ an alien probe -- is just as dogmatic.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| His battle is only partly about Oumuamua. That is just a
| vehicle for his arguments. The real issue is the bias against
| life detection experiments generally. Want to sample soil on
| mars and measure oxygen absorption? Great. We will put your
| sensor on the next rover. Want to pour nutrients on that soil
| and see if anything eats it? Go away you crazy person. Want to
| detect methane in an exoplanet atmosphere? Here is your
| telescope time. Want to detect CFCs, a likely technosignature?
| Good luck getting them to return your emails. That bias against
| definitive binary life detection efforts, solid yes/no answers,
| underpins Loeb's points on Oumuamua. If we are serious about
| life detection we should be looking for indisputable artifacts
| of both primitive and complex life, the later of which includes
| technological life.
|
| Loeb must also fight against widespread public assumptions
| about the hunt for life, specifically that people think SETI is
| a giant organization always scanning the sky. The public thinks
| the scientific community is actually putting in a solid effort
| to look for aliens. They aren't. We as a society spend more on
| candycrush than the entire SETI project. Want a definitive
| answer on whether the next Oumuamua is a light sail? Cough up
| the money so the scientists can buy the telescope time.
| shmageggy wrote:
| You're putting a lot of words in his mouth. He did an AMA on
| reddit yesterday where he had every chance to say such things
| if that's what he thinks, but he did little more than list
| his accomplishments and link to his books and articles.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/l6xl3d/askscien.
| ..
| cambalache wrote:
| Or you just has not listened to his conversations with Lex
| Fridman, Sean Carroll and Joe Rogan among others.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Note that I said "his battle" rather than "his words". He
| is but one voice in the fight against the particular
| scientific bias I described. Had Oumuamua not come along,
| he would have attached to any number of other vehicles (eg
| BLC-1) to make basically the same points.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Science money is _very_ limited. Space science money more
| limited. Space science money to get components on rovers yet
| more limited. Telescope time is also limited. Mission time on
| remote probes is also limited.
|
| So you devise an experiment to measure oxygen absorption that
| uses a probe's existing mass spectrometer. Your experiment
| doesn't cut into the probe's mass budget so it basically is
| just a scheduling issue. If your experiment is bumped from
| the mission schedule there's not compromising the probe or
| total mission. You've got a pretty good chance of getting
| that experiment on the docket.
|
| This is contrary to a nutrient experiment that eats into the
| probe's mass budget and mission time. If the sensors are
| dedicated to the experiment that's less mass for other
| sensors. Even if you got approved if you can't built the
| experiment to be reliable and survivable it won't get
| approved.
|
| Similar is true for trying to measure CFCs on exoplanets.
| There's a handful of instruments that can even get spectra
| from exoplanets and even then only from transiting ones and
| _even then_ only has giants so far. Even if we could detect
| CFCs in terrestrial planet atmospheres, CFCs do not stay in
| the atmosphere very long so you 'd only detect them (from a
| technological civilization) for a very short window of time.
| The odds of finding them are vanishingly low with current
| instruments. No one is going to return your e-mails if you
| propose observations of CFCs because it's a snipe hunt
| wasting valuable and limited instrument time. If you're a
| serious researcher you'd know this already and wouldn't waste
| people's time. Methane is a general purpose biomarker and is
| something far more likely to be found. Since you've got a
| limited stars you can even gather information from the time
| is better spent on the more likely observation.
| krok wrote:
| I mean, you're just reciting the arguments that the science
| establishment generally recites.
|
| We have spent tons of money on particle accelerators to no
| clear benefit, either to science or to society. If a
| similar amount of money had gone to SETI, many of the above
| objections would have been addressed and resolved, with the
| advantage that science is being done which the average
| person paying for it is likely to a) understand what is
| being asked and b) be interested in the answer.
| giantrobot wrote:
| I did pull my arguments out of the "Big Astronomy: Let's
| Keep Down The Little Guys" playbook. Come off it. The
| "science establishment" repeats things because there's
| compelling evidence and scientific rigor supporting those
| things. It's not some "Big Science" conspiracy.
|
| Particle accelerators have exploratory experiments like
| hunting the Higgs boson with LHC but they run lots of
| other experiments as well. There's also lots of particle
| accelerators (of varying capability) around so if you
| devise an experiment needing one you likely have several
| options unless you literally need the LHC.
|
| With large telescopes there's far fewer available and the
| sky is pretty big. Radio SETI is a long shot search and
| optical SETI even more so. It's not that they lack merit
| but getting funding for telescope time is a lot harder
| when the chance of any positive finding is very remote. A
| lot of SETI funding actually piggybacks on other research
| using the same telescopes.
|
| The chances of SETI finding positive results isn't
| necessarily from a lack of things to find but from
| physical limitations. Our _best_ radio telescopes could
| only detect Earth 's more powerful radio emissions from a
| few light years away. Broadcasts like TV and radio
| wouldn't be detectable outside the solar system. The
| inverse square law is a stone cold bitch for interstellar
| communication. SETI's best hope of finding signals are
| ones intentional ones.
|
| Even with billions of dollars SETI would have similar
| chances of detecting an ETI as without. It's a needle in
| a haystack search with warehouse sized haystacks. More
| money doesn't necessarily get it done much faster or
| better. There's a limited number of sites for large radio
| telescopes and they have limited fields of view and stars
| are only in that FOV for a limited time. More money might
| let you search the warehouse sized haystack a few times
| faster but it's still a vast search space.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> if you propose observations of CFCs because it's a snipe
| hunt wasting valuable and limited instrument time.
|
| That's what they said about hot jupiters. Exoplanets could
| have been detected _decades_ earlier had there not been a
| consistent bias against the idea of large objects orbiting
| so near host stars, a bias based on a single data point
| (our solar system).
| giantrobot wrote:
| It's unlikely many types of exoplanets could have been
| detected "decades" earlier. Transit and Doppler detection
| methods require good seeing power and accurate intensity
| measurements. It takes large mirrors with good optics for
| good seeing power and sensitive electronics for the
| spectral/intensity measurements. Those two things weren't
| readily available until the past few decades...which
| surprise is when exoplanet discoveries started happening.
|
| Hot Jupiters and CFCs are very different things. Hot
| Jupiters were puzzling but something that _could_ be
| readily detected by existing instruments. Once discovered
| solar system development models were improved.
|
| CFCs in a planet's atmosphere is something current
| instruments _can 't_ detect. Even if they could the
| number of observational candidates is limited. The only
| way we could detect CFCs is if some civilization was
| actively producing them at the time that light left the
| planet. So even if there's millions of CFC producing
| civilizations in the galaxy the odds of detecting those
| CFCs in candidate systems is extremely low. Even if those
| civilizations produced CFCs for millennia the odds are
| against ever seeing them. So it's pretty wasteful to use
| valuable telescope time for that rather than something
| that has a higher probability of giving some results.
|
| It's not about solar system chauvinism or biases. There's
| not infinite amounts of science money or science time. No
| one is writing off unlikely events, it's just breathless
| searches for those unlikely events has a huge opportunity
| cost. And talking about biases, assuming technological
| civilizations will produce CFCs is a very Earth/Human
| biased assumption. CFCs were/are produced on Earth for
| market reasons that don't necessarily apply in any
| circumstances except those that worked out on Earth.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> It's unlikely many types of exoplanets
|
| Ya, but if people were allowed to look for hot jupiters
| in the 70s/80s they would have found the _first_
| exoplanet far sooner.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Allowed? No one was banned from looking for Hot Jupiters.
| They weren't an expected phenomenon. The instruments to
| detect them also didn't/barely exist in the 70s and 80s
| and they're some of the _easiest_ exoplanets to detect.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's a political problem because basic research on these
| matters still requires money that mostly comes from the US
| government.
|
| Space stuff exists because it's a jobs program in the South.
| The search for life starts crossing lines because it raises
| awkward questions that challenge politically meaningful
| people.
|
| End of the day, you don't bite the hand that feeds.
| api wrote:
| At least one Mars lander has discovered ice and evidence of
| briny water beneath the soil. The fact that we have not sent
| a microscope just baffles me.
|
| I do get the sense that for whatever reason there is a bias
| against explicitly looking for life. I don't think there's a
| big conspiracy explanation. I personally think it's what I
| call the "boring universe brigade," the skeptic ideology that
| came to dominate science starting in the 1970s that treats
| fascination as a contrarian indicator. "If it really
| fascinates people it's probably bullshit."
|
| If there's anything beyond that bias it's probably a fear of
| triggering fundamentalists.
|
| Edit:
|
| Here's one bit of evidence for possible near surface water at
| a landing site:
|
| https://www.space.com/209-life-mars-scientist-claims.html
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Astronomers are extremely interested in detecting
| biosognatures in exoplanet atmospheres. This is one of the
| hottest topics in astronomy right now. They're just not
| interested in idle speculation about whether or not Oumuamua
| is a light sail. If there were some measurement that could be
| done to learn more about Oumuamua, then astronomers would do
| it, but it's a tiny object that's quite far away now. Most
| astronomers simply believe that the most likely explanation
| for the anomalous acceleration is that there was some
| undetected outgassing from the rock. That's much more
| plausible than the idea that _this one particular object_ is
| an alien spaceship - not because there couldn 't be alien
| spaceships somewhere out there, but because there are so many
| rocks floating around in space.
|
| The one thing that you really can't get funding for is SETI,
| but that's not the fault of astronomers. That's the fault of
| congresspeople who ridiculed the search for "little green
| men" in the 1990s and barred NASA from funding it. Almost all
| astronomy funding comes from governments, so a government ban
| on funding a particular line of research means that that
| research basically won't happen.
| gamapuna wrote:
| Here's a recent interview of Avi Loeb on this subject
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DQYiyQ7Tkk
| nabla9 wrote:
| That is probably the best interview/podcast made with Avi Loeb.
|
| Mindscape podcast (Sean Carroll) is really good.
| Vrondi wrote:
| Dr. Loeb was just a guest on the NPR show "Science Friday" last
| week, explaining that Science has an obligation to explore these
| questions instead of dogmatically refusing to explore the
| possibilities. Interesting listen:
|
| https://www.sciencefriday.com/episodes/january-22-2021/
| [deleted]
| eightails wrote:
| How hard is it for people to just admit that we probably have
| inadequate evidence to reach a solid conclusion. This was the
| first object of its kind and we had very limited observations of
| it. From what I've read, none of the hypotheses regarding the
| measured acceleration (e.g. outgassing vs manufactured solar
| sail) can really be backed up in any substantial way. So it seems
| disengenuous to get into vitriolic arguments about it.
|
| We just have to keep watching, more thoroughly and with better
| equipment.
| jcims wrote:
| I think some of the vitriol comes around the discussion of
| whether or not we should develop a mission to go visit it.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| There's no chance of catching Oumuamua. It's leaving the
| solar system at 26 km/s and it has a 3 year head start.
| jcims wrote:
| Today no. It's clearly possible but it's probably a 50 year
| objective between technology development and mission
| operations.
| cambalache wrote:
| Good luck finding a 200-m object at 273 AU.
| garmaine wrote:
| There are mission profiles that could manage a flyby on a
| multi-decade timeline.
| postalrat wrote:
| The conspiracy theorist in my wants to believe that if the
| military thought it could be from an alien civilization they
| already have a mission to reach it and would do what they can
| to prevent any sort of public mission from reaching it.
| jamesdmiller wrote:
| By this logic, the military would have started vaccinating
| their troops for COVID by March 2020.
| postalrat wrote:
| How is that in any way related?
| yoz-y wrote:
| Both imply that the military has scientific knowledge
| that the bulk of public research does not. (about events
| that are not directly caused by them)
| gdubs wrote:
| It's pretty well documented that intelligence agencies
| new about the novel coronavirus very early on, and we
| know the vaccines were completed very rapidly after the
| genomic information was published -- so this argument is
| sort of off. The US appears to have had reasons for not
| rushing to vaccinate its military. China, by contrast,
| made the decision to vaccinate their troops a lot
| earlier.
|
| In other words the military clearly _does_ have early
| eyes on all sorts of situations - and their action or
| inaction on that info is a separate consideration.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| That's simply not practically possible. It's just going too
| fast. We would either have to build a really stupendously big
| rocket, or develop propulsion that is dramatically more
| efficient than anything ever done before.
| jcims wrote:
| That's the point. If we received some kind of undeniable
| evidence that it was alien technology we would have three
| parallel 'Contact' level operations underway to go get it.
|
| As a mystery object we might finally get someone to develop
| a mission based on a science objective once some of the
| technology has been sufficiently developed.
| garmaine wrote:
| Or launch a cubesat on top of a Falcon Heavy with a Vulcan
| Centaur kick stage and a Jupiter gravity assist.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I haven't seen anyone in the scientific community actually
| push for this. I'm not sure it is even what Avi Loeb is
| pushing for.
| erdos4d wrote:
| That the object could have outgassed 10% of its mass while
| exiting the solar system and produced a steady acceleration
| with no detectable change to its orbital period stretches all
| believability. However, I've seen similar bullshit pass as
| explaining such cases consistently in this field, and if anyone
| doubts it or makes an issue about it for too long, they get the
| old peer pressure applied to get them in line, or end their
| career. I think that is part of where the vitrol comes from.
| People don't like being silenced or losing their respectability
| because someone waved their hands a lot and said they explained
| something.
| postalrat wrote:
| Of course we need to keep watching.
|
| But at the same time why shouldn't we continue trying to
| understand what oumuamua is based on everything we know?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> to understand what oumuamua is based on everything we
| know?
|
| Sure, but one should not make big decisions on so few data
| points. The data shows it as accelerating. Ok. I'm still not
| willing to say "alien civilizations exist and are using light
| sails" based on a handful of observations of a single object.
| One should hold off such monumental determinations until one
| has profound data available. So once any discussion moves
| from "it was accelerating" to "aliens are real", many serious
| scientists will just walk away. They will come back once
| there is a more appropriate data set for such discussions.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't think your statement and the person you responded to
| necessarily conflict.
| Gys wrote:
| Early mankind did not understand storms and thunder and
| invented gods to explain the phenomenon. We still have
| phenomenon we cannot explain but ruled out gods. So now
| alternatively we like extraterrestrial life for explanations :)
| karmakaze wrote:
| I don't think it's quite the same. We know there are things
| we don't know from continuous discoveries of things we didn't
| know before.
|
| From my perspective I want aliens to exist, if for no other
| reason than to resolve the Fermi paradox: one less unknown.
| Existence if true is easier to prove than non-existence if
| true.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| > How hard is it for people to just admit that we probably have
| inadequate evidence to reach a solid conclusion.
|
| Evidence indicates: extremely hard. People are extremely
| uncomfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. In a variety of
| circumstances, ranging from the storms another commenter
| mentioned to your favorite political issue, people will happily
| make stuff up and believe it rather than accept uncertainty.
| From a certain perspective it's hard to fault this instinct,
| since true certainty is almost never possible but we still have
| to make decisions in finite timeframes. If you're careful, you
| can probably catch yourself doing the same thing.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Well, no, the arguments are still important whether or not we
| can reach a definitive conclusion, because they inform what
| "keep watching" means. If there is a stronger consensus that
| it's an outgassing comet, then money/time/resources will be
| invested in looking for evidence of that. Likewise, of the
| consensus is that it's a probe, those same resources will be
| invested differently.
|
| This is actually Avi's argument for considering the probe
| hypothesis. He's not trying to prove it was a probe, he's
| making a case for investing resources into experiments that
| could detect probes and industrialized alien civilizations, as
| opposed to detecting new classes of comets.
| calibas wrote:
| I think it's precisely because we don't know that people have
| such strong opinions. People get to fill in what they want to
| believe, then argue a point that can never really be proven
| wrong or right.
| bostonsre wrote:
| Yea.. saying "I don't know" is extremely powerful and
| important but it doesn't seem to be said enough.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The reason we have inadequate evidence is the relatively low
| priority of SETI compared to other science.
|
| SETI has literally been living off financial scraps for
| decades. If a couple of billionaires hadn't funded efforts with
| very generous personal donations there would be almost no SETI
| at all.
|
| And if SETI had been funded properly - which would still be a
| drop in the ocean compared to other government spending,
| nationally and internationally - we'd have more observations to
| draw on from other sources.
|
| This is all quite strange considering how much of a game
| changer and scientific motivator evidence of ETI would be.
| BatFastard wrote:
| It could be that the government knows ETs exist, so it is
| pretty much of a moot point to spend money on searching for
| them.
| PopsiclePete wrote:
| Twenty years ago, I'd have been more willing to agree with
| that. I could see the US Gov't as some sort of sinister,
| hyper-competent (and even malevolent?) force that could
| definitely keep a secret like that forever from us, and
| "disappear" those that get too nosy.
|
| Now? Not so much. Looking at who our "representatives" are
| - failed football coaches, regular conspiracy nuts -
| there's no way in hell that this "knowledge" would remain
| locked away for years, decades. Not with clowns like these
| in charge.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| > This is all quite strange considering how much of a game
| changer and scientific motivator evidence of ETI would be.
|
| All conspiracy theories aside, there is an argument to be
| made that something with the potential to completely undo the
| status quo would, in a less-than-ideal world, have a hard
| time finding funding from those at the top of the totem pole
| of power.
| TheBlight wrote:
| >This is all quite strange considering how much of a game
| changer and scientific motivator evidence of ETI would be.
|
| Well not only a motivator in an inspirational sense but if we
| can actually get our hands on ET debris who knows what
| technical leaps we might achieve by attempting to reverse
| engineer it/parts of it.
| [deleted]
| Itinerant662 wrote:
| Contrary to the narratives you'll find elsewhere, including in
| Loeb's new book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Life Beyond
| Earth, this is not a possibility worth taking seriously as a
| scientist. A straightforward look at the evidence shows us why."
| -> "Loeb offers only loud, immodest speculation about aliens and
| diatribes about community groupthink. Coupled with inadequate
| data, which is the only data we have, he's impossible to prove
| wrong."
| krok wrote:
| If something is impossible to prove wrong _because of
| inadequate data_ isn 't that a strong suggestion that further
| research would be a good idea??
| willis936 wrote:
| Oumuamua raises some questions, but the one my mind keeps
| wandering to is "how common are these interstellar objects?"
|
| It poses a serious existential threat to us. We are a tiny
| target, but we have been able to observe these objects for a very
| short period of time. Unlike regular solar satellites, they are
| only visible for a very short period of time. Like comets, if one
| hit us it would end life on the planet. They don't need to be
| massive with how fast they are. We can estimate how many comets
| are out there with orbital mechanics models, but what about
| objects originating from outside the solar system? We could one
| day not wake up because we couldn't even see one of these coming
| before it hit us.
| detritus wrote:
| > Like comets, if one hit us it would end life on the planet.
|
| 'Oumuamua is more of a 'city-killer' risk at its size than a
| comet such as Halley's, which would be more of the sort of
| range of size that could seriously screw up our day.
| willis936 wrote:
| True, Oumuamua itself would not have done Earth changing
| damage even in the worst case collision, but where there is
| one we have to ask "are there others?" and "how big are
| they?"
|
| We have a pretty good idea of the asteroids and comets in
| stable orbits around the sun. We know with certainty we're
| not going to be hit with a planet killer asteroid in the next
| hundred years because we track all of them.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| We track _all of them that we know of_. And we _think_ that
| we know most of them. I 'm not sure that we know all of
| them; I'm not sure that the trackers think that, either.
| willis936 wrote:
| Actually, we do. Asteroids large enough to be considered
| planet-killers are the easiest ones to spot.
|
| https://youtu.be/4Wrc4fHSCpw
| avian wrote:
| > We can estimate how many comets are out there with orbital
| mechanics models, but what about objects originating from
| outside the solar system?
|
| We can estimate the frequency and size of impacts, regardless
| of the origin of the impacting body, from observing craters on
| the Earth, moon and other planets. Those show that the "end of
| life" impacts are pretty rare - the conclusion that also
| follows from the fact that we're having this discussion here.
| willis936 wrote:
| The solar system has an orbital period of 250k years. Nearby
| systems do not have the same orbital period. I'm not sure
| galaxies are considered stable to individual stellar systems.
| breck wrote:
| > The solar system has an orbital period of 250k years.
|
| I thought it was 250 _million_ years, though maybe I 'm
| misunderstanding you. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/how-long-does-it-
| take-the....
| willis936 wrote:
| My mistake! I didn't check, but knew the value was in the
| range of "too long to assume our galactic neighborhood is
| static or even repeating but too short to not have had
| potential repetitions show up in Earth geology".
| idlewords wrote:
| Whatever the thing is, it's clearly an interesting object and the
| only sane response is to build a big rocket to go chase it. But
| we don't have our shit together civilizationally and have to wait
| (and hope) that there's a next one.
|
| This is one reason that I'm such a big fan of robot probes vs.
| human space flight. If your space program is about flinging tiny
| cameras into the remotest reaches of the solar system, it's
| easier to pursue the occasional alien asteroid on short notice
| than if you're all about getting a can of primates to the next
| planet over.
| Sosh101 wrote:
| It was already moving away too quickly once discovered, even if
| we there had been some kind of craft ready.
| px43 wrote:
| Presumably it's no longer accelerating though, so it doesn't
| really matter how fast it's going. I guess the thing is still
| going to be in our solar system for another 15 years or so,
| so a solar sail or any number of other options exist to
| launch something towards it.
|
| https://i4is.org/what-we-do/technical/project-lyra/
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/should-earthlings-chase-
| oumuamua...
| idlewords wrote:
| No such thing as too quickly if you've got a motivated
| planet.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| What a hit piece. Interesting read but wow this really feels like
| one guy is annoyed with another guy and decided to write about
| him in this thinly veiled article.
| chairmanwow1 wrote:
| Yeah this article left a pretty sour taste in mouth. Every
| interview I've heard with Loeb has been pretty interesting and
| humble as he purports a new theory.
| jzer0cool wrote:
| A while back there was something known as the _SETI Project_
| which I could run on my machine. It would collect data from the
| skies.
|
| I'm curious to know SETI project (or something else) was able to
| capture any data from the skies as well? The skies are monitored
| and maybe there is some data, somewhere, as an interesting area
| for us to all explore.
| arnaudsm wrote:
| The title implies research on Oumuamua was censored, which was
| never the case.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I think he's just implying that people have been too polite to
| Loeb before.
| nix23 wrote:
| So in other articles hes censoring him self (the peoples he
| wants to be polite with), or has any title of him about
| another person the word uncensored?
| andrewflnr wrote:
| It's a clickbait headline, don't overthink it.
| untoxicness wrote:
| "That Harvard Astronomer" is Avi Loeb.
|
| Loeb was recently a guest on the Lex Fridman podcast where he
| talked about Oumuamua amongst other things. [0] I found his view
| on the subject fascinating and his perspective on science
| refreshing.
|
| [0] https://lexfridman.com/avi-loeb/
| Zigurd wrote:
| He was interviewed for the Kotke Ride Home podcast. He has a
| book coming out about Oumuamua. I will probably buy the book
| because Loeb is apparently brilliant. His evaluation of
| Oumuamua is very interesting.
|
| BUT the data about Oumuamua is really really tiny. The science
| of interstellar objects is nascent. Other than to say "If it is
| a natural object it is super-strange" I am not sure what else
| there is to say.
|
| In the interview he was articulating theories about it being a
| cosmic "buoy." So I am anticipating a couple chapters of solid
| science followed by a lot of speculation, even if it is highly
| informed speculation.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| My concern is that we aren't going to get much more than what
| was said in the articles already.
|
| I think the beneficial outcome of all of this is that we can
| identify what to look for next time, and hopefully get
| funding to do that.
|
| I also wonder if, as our tracking tech gets better, it would
| be relatively cheap to land a bunch of sensors on these and
| have them go on a ride somewhere in space for much cheaper
| than launching our own and trying to accelerate it to that
| velocity, even considering the costs of interception.
| m4rtink wrote:
| If you can intercept an interstellar object to land
| something on it you can by definition also just launch the
| thing to the same trajectory.
|
| Unless your payload is advanced enough to use the mass of
| the object for something (fuel, radiation shielding,
| construction materials, etc.) there is not much benefit in
| landing on an interstellar object if you just want to
| launch an interstellar probe.
|
| Maybe actually if you wanted to send a really long range
| message it could help to put it on an interstellar asteroid
| - much more likely someone would notice a huge mountain
| flying through their system than a piano sized piece of
| metal, even if both hold the same message.
| dysfunction wrote:
| If you had _really_ good shock absorbers you could
| intercept at an orthogonal trajectory and have the impact
| knock you into the desired trajectory... not practical
| but fun to think about.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| The other argument is mass - most of the sensor could
| bury itself in the mass for safety.
|
| Yes on trajectory, but no on same trajectory, with same
| mass. Of course, this might be a moot point, because
| other than hiding from some radiation and micro-scoping
| impacts, as well as leaching resources (which we aren't
| really advanced enough to do), there is no benefit.
| akuchling wrote:
| The Washington Post has a review of the book:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/an-interstellar-
| accid...
|
| Two excerpts from the review: "While this exotic explanation
| of the object serves as the backbone of the book, Loeb's
| broader argument grows out of his bewilderment with the
| blowback to his hypothesis; he regards it as an omen of
| imaginative decay and anti-alien bias in the scientific
| community. ... While it's tantalizing to imagine that
| 'Oumuamua was our first brush with aliens, Loeb writes most
| memorably about collecting shells on the beach with his
| daughters, brainstorming trippy new studies with his many
| proteges and seeking comfort in the view of the night sky
| from our lonely planet."
| shrimpx wrote:
| His scientific perspective very much reminds me of early
| Einstein's. Refreshingly idealistic and foolish.
| ignoranceprior wrote:
| What about that Israeli military official who claimed that there
| was a Galactic Federation of aliens? Could this be one of their
| probes?
| dqpb wrote:
| Uh, link please?
| ignoranceprior wrote:
| https://www.jpost.com/omg/former-israeli-space-security-
| chie...
| tomiplaz wrote:
| Here's also a review of Avi Loeb's arguments written and
| presented by prof David Kipping from the Cool Worlds Lab:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX_Bj7064Ms
| Damorian wrote:
| I'm just saying, if I wanted to probe every solar system in the
| galaxy, I'd build a craft with extreme geometry that would fly
| very close to stars and accelerate for a gravity assist before
| flying toward the next target star. So it would look exactly like
| what we saw.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| You would have to identify the star that Oumua is going to for
| that theory to work. Seems like it should be pretty easy to
| know if it's going to the nearest star (or coming from one),
| and it's not originated from or going to Alpha Centauri.
|
| The next question is whether or not there is some other logical
| path that defines logical gravity assists to visit as many
| stars as possible - nothing like that has been put forward
| either.
|
| Afaik, it's coming from so far away that we have no idea what
| star it previously visited.
| Damorian wrote:
| I don't think it's safe to assume it would come from/go to
| the nearest stars to us, as the flight path might need
| extreme changes that aren't in the fuel budget, especially
| given its already very high speed.
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