4 ms·
Oh, but don't forget that one congregation of dust particles that flew by us really fast, which _might_ (who am I kidding - we all know it's 100%!) have been an
by Joe-Z 8y ago
Oh, but don't forget that one congregation of dust particles that flew by us really fast, which _might_ (who am I kidding - we all know it's 100%!) have been an alien probe.
Oumuamua is what it's been called.
- btilly 8y agoAn alternate explanation for that is that it was effectively a giant fractal dust bunny left over from the formation of a solar system. The fractal structure explains why it is so light. As for how fast it is traveling, it was traveling at close to the average speed of stars around us. The 25 km/s that we saw is mostly how fast we are traveling, not it. (The Sun bounces up and down through the galactic plane. We are currently "above" it and heading up. We'll next arrive back where we are in about 30 million years.) There might be a lot of objects like that out there. In fact the fact that we randomly saw one suggests that there are many orders of magnitude more of them than we had realized.
- cpeterso 8y agoThe PBS Space Time video series, written and hosted by Lehman College astrophysicist Matthew O’Dowd, has a nice analysis of popular 'Oumuamua theories: "'Oumuamua Is Not Aliens" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wICOlaQOpM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wICOlaQOpM0