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Well, the paper[0] spends ~98% of the time not claiming that. I think I thought those pictures of it were what it looked like! but "The large variations on the

Well, the paper[0] spends ~98% of the time not claiming that. I think I thought those pictures of it were what it looked like! but "The large variations on the light curves indicate that ʻOumuamua is a highly elongated object... However, the size and shape have not been directly observed as ʻOumuamua appears as nothing more than a point source of light even in the most powerful telescopes. Neither the albedo or triaxial ellipsoid shape are precisely known."[1] [0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11490.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11490.pdf [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua

jaclaz 8y ago
>Well, the paper[0] spends ~98% of the time not claiming that. Still it does say that, and the actual 2% remaining and actually stating the possibilty of it being an alien ship of some kind is essentially coming from the "set of educated and random guesses" (it is difficult to call them anything else, though officially it is called "Observations") published on Scientific American blogs (and cited as if they were a scientific paper): https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-to-search-for-dead-cosmic-civilizations/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-to-sea... by Abraham Loeb (chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University) Probably they should add a "Giorgio's Edition" to the department name ....