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The idea it is a fractal structure is not weirder than the idea it is possibly an alien probe sent over the course of hundreds of thousands of years to pass by

The idea it is a fractal structure is not weirder than the idea it is possibly an alien probe sent over the course of hundreds of thousands of years to pass by our Goldilocks-zoned planet for observation. Does anyone know more about the initiatives by Yuri Milner with respect to this? I heard something like he is helping fund satellites that could specifically be better at looking at 'Oumuamua than our current means?

magduf 8y ago
We can't look at 'Oumuamua any more, with any kind of spacecraft. It's headed out of the solar system. There's absolutely no way we could possibly put together a mission and build a craft and launch it and have it catch up with 'Oumuamua at this point. If we had something ready to launch now, it might be possible to catch up with it, but it would be years before we could have a mission ready to go, and we don't have the propulsion technology necessary to catch up with it after that much time. This should have been a big wake-up call to have pre-made probe craft ready to launch to investigate anything odd that entered the solar system. But expecting humanity to be that fore-sighted is pure folly.
- LifeLiverTransp 8y ago
  We can foresee our lack of foresight- so its not hopeless.
  - magduf 8y ago
    I'm sure there were some people who could foresee the lack of foresight before the collapse of Rome too. It didn't help them.
- jandrese 8y ago
  Oumuamua is traveling at 26kps. For comparison the Voyager probes are traveling at around 17kps. Even if we had a probe ready today it's already too far and moving too fast to overtake. Even if we had a probe ready when we first detected the object it would have been difficult to intercept with today's technology. It would have to be something like a Falcon Heavy already in orbit and ready to burn at a moment's notice with a tiny probe at the top for gathering the data.
  - magduf 8y ago
    >Even if we had a probe ready when we first detected the object it would have been difficult to intercept with today's technology. That's the other side of the problem: we didn't detect it until far too late. We should be able to detect objects of this size much, much sooner than we currently do. We're not looking very hard for them, so usually we end up seeing them after they've already whizzed by. There have been way too many times in the last decade or so when we're informed, "hey, we just barely got missed by some big asteroid, and we didn't even see it until it already went by the Earth!" That's just pathetic.
  - jacobush 8y ago
    So it follows we should have that, at all times. :-)
    - captncraig 8y ago
      That payload is... a lot of teslas worth of cargo. It would need to be built in orbit. A project that size would definitely make a lot of jobs and require a major rebuilding of our space problem. So many downsides.
- fallingfrog 8y ago
  One of the Breakthrough Starshot probes could do a flyby and take some pictures. Edit: although, that would involve pointing a 100 gigawatt laser directly at Oumaouma, which might disturb it.
  - magduf 8y ago
    >that would involve pointing a 100 gigawatt laser directly at Oumaouma, which might disturb it Maybe that would cause it to turn around and come back.
    - fallingfrog 8y ago
      “Oh so you think that’s funny earthlings? Just discovered laser pointers have we? Well guess what!”
- Tepix 8y ago
  If we build prototypes of the Breakthrough project probes in say 5 years there's a real possibility that we can catch it in a decade or two.

magduf 8y ago

We can't look at 'Oumuamua any more, with any kind of spacecraft. It's headed out of the solar system. There's absolutely no way we could possibly put together a mission and build a craft and launch it and have it catch up with 'Oumuamua at this point. If we had something ready to launch now, it might be possible to catch up with it, but it would be years before we could have a mission ready to go, and we don't have the propulsion technology necessary to catch up with it after that much time. This should have been a big wake-up call to have pre-made probe craft ready to launch to investigate anything odd that entered the solar system. But expecting humanity to be that fore-sighted is pure folly.

LifeLiverTransp 8y ago
We can foresee our lack of foresight- so its not hopeless.
- magduf 8y ago
  I'm sure there were some people who could foresee the lack of foresight before the collapse of Rome too. It didn't help them.
jandrese 8y ago
Oumuamua is traveling at 26kps. For comparison the Voyager probes are traveling at around 17kps. Even if we had a probe ready today it's already too far and moving too fast to overtake. Even if we had a probe ready when we first detected the object it would have been difficult to intercept with today's technology. It would have to be something like a Falcon Heavy already in orbit and ready to burn at a moment's notice with a tiny probe at the top for gathering the data.
- magduf 8y ago
  >Even if we had a probe ready when we first detected the object it would have been difficult to intercept with today's technology. That's the other side of the problem: we didn't detect it until far too late. We should be able to detect objects of this size much, much sooner than we currently do. We're not looking very hard for them, so usually we end up seeing them after they've already whizzed by. There have been way too many times in the last decade or so when we're informed, "hey, we just barely got missed by some big asteroid, and we didn't even see it until it already went by the Earth!" That's just pathetic.
- jacobush 8y ago
  So it follows we should have that, at all times. :-)
  - captncraig 8y ago
    That payload is... a lot of teslas worth of cargo. It would need to be built in orbit. A project that size would definitely make a lot of jobs and require a major rebuilding of our space problem. So many downsides.
fallingfrog 8y ago
One of the Breakthrough Starshot probes could do a flyby and take some pictures. Edit: although, that would involve pointing a 100 gigawatt laser directly at Oumaouma, which might disturb it.
- magduf 8y ago
  >that would involve pointing a 100 gigawatt laser directly at Oumaouma, which might disturb it Maybe that would cause it to turn around and come back.
  - fallingfrog 8y ago
    “Oh so you think that’s funny earthlings? Just discovered laser pointers have we? Well guess what!”
Tepix 8y ago
If we build prototypes of the Breakthrough project probes in say 5 years there's a real possibility that we can catch it in a decade or two.