2 ms·
I want to believe, but just looking at the numbers make the aliens theory seem kind of ridiculous to me. At its current velocity, Oumuamua would have taken some
by Ancalagon 7y ago
I want to believe, but just looking at the numbers make the aliens theory seem kind of ridiculous to me. At its current velocity, Oumuamua would have taken something like 45000! years to reach us from just the nearest star. Engineering a generations-ship or even just a drone and not improving on the speed of the craft just does not make sense to me. I suppose the craft could have slowed down before we noticed it, but then why only slow it down its current velocity if it could have stayed in the system and collected more data? Of the theories I've heard so far, only debris from a craft seems to make sense, but then the debris would have to be incredibly old for it to have just wandered into our system on accident.
- plutonorm 7y agoAnother theory I have heard is it's like bouy in the ocean. It sits still relative to the galactic motion of the stars and observes stars whose paths it drifts into. The theory is backed up a little by the fact that it is relatively still with respect to the universe at large.
- Ancalagon 7y agoUnfortunately this is not a likely explanation either. If you take a look at the wiki, it states that the intercept with our solar system is likely the only close encounter the asteroid has likely ever had. Space is just too vast for chance encounters to occur all that often: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua#Indications_of_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua#Indications_of_...
- ianai 7y agoIf that’s true, that would have been some very interesting matter to capture and investigate. It could represent conditions of a time and part of the universe much different than our own. I really wish we had infrastructure built up in space to be more capable.