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Harvard astronomer argues that alien vessel paid us a visit
- rich_sasha 6y agoI think two things: one, that it is indeed a hypothesis that fits the data, and in a way a very exciting prospect. As Sherlock Holmes said, once you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left must be the answer. The other is, there must be possible explanations we haven't thought of (even if not actually correct). Furthermore, I'm in no doubt prof Loeb is a great scientist, but as for this being a key justification for the findings, there was a host of great minds holding crazy and unsubstantiated beliefs only vaguely linked to their core expertise. Some of these crazy ideas turned out to be true, but not all. All I'm saying, this is cool and I'll follow that, but I'm not kitting out the anti-alien survival shelter just yet.
- jl6 6y agoCounterpoints: https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/is-oumuamua-an-interstellar-spaceship-im-still-going-with-no https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/is-oumuamua-an-interstellar-sp... (More convincing ones, IMHO)
- michaelbuckbee 6y agoThanks for sharing that - it really helped me wrap my mind around both how weird this object is and also the holes in the argument that it's an alien craft.
- darthnebula 6y agoThanks for sharing. This is what I was hoping people here claiming he is wrong would provide.
- andrewflnr 6y agoI actually don't find that convincing at all. He dismisses the idea of it being castoff as "special pleading", but what else could it be in the galactic rest frame? Same for the size and tumbling: the most reasonable artificial hypothesis was that it was a cast off chunk of solar sail, essentially litter, and that's still completely consistent with the evidence. His best argument was about the possibility of a natural, normal-shaped object just being a lot brighter on one side, but he barely mentioned that for some reason. I'm a lot more convinced that an artificial origin is reasonable to believe.
- XorNot 6y agoThis has the same basic problem it always does: from a positivist viewpoint, what changes in what we do if we start assuming artificial origin? We would do all the same experiments we already did (which included sweeping for transmissions), and have the same lack of data that fails to meaningfully distinguish models. Worse, disproving a hypothesis is not itself evidence in favour of another one unless they're aggressively mutually exclusive - and even then, this is rarely absolute once measurement error/difficulty becomes a factor. Particularly when you start adding additional items - i.e. unexplained acceleration, okay sure, but how? Either it's something very similar to outgassing (which is what conventional propellants and ion engines are) or it's a new technology we have never encountered, which puts it on worse footing then the more likely explanation of naturally occurring things being observed in an unusual setting (we've never observed an interstellar object before this, haven't after this, it's reasonable to think that the 99.99%+ of it's life it spent outside of the solar system means it starts with surface conditions unlike what we're used to from comets). But in both cases, starting from the incredible explanation hasn't contributed a way to distinguish the hypotheses - it proposes no new experiments. In fact, generally presuming alien technology artifact shuts down experimental futures: if we're actually being observed by technology, then likely we need do nothing to observe another one - it would be reasonable to expect that aliens are looking for aliens, and will send more probes now that they've found them. Whereas interstellar rocks will require advances in our rocketry and mission staging so we can hopefully find one we can get on an intercept trajectory with.
- FiberBundle 6y ago> we've never observed an interstellar object before this, haven't after this, it's reasonable to think that the 99.99%+ of it's life it spent outside of the solar system means it starts with surface conditions unlike what we're used to from comets In the Lex Friedman Podcast Loeb said that another interstellar object, named Borisov, had been observed since Oumuamua and it had a typical comet shape.
- XorNot 6y agoSurface conditions is not the geometry: Oumuamua has spent thousands to millions of years nowhere near the heat of a star, in the interstellar medium. So unlike cyclic comets in orbit around Sol, having an unusual surface chemistry would be expected since it's not being evaporated every few hundred years by close encounters. The point is, pleading about potentially naturally occurring conditions we've never seen before occurring in an object we've never seen before isn't much of an argument when you have no evidence to actually exclude them (and the observation timeline was in a phase where it was already faint).
- simonh 6y agoIt's a neat idea and an interesting puzzle, and sure this is one conceivable interpretation, but then the question is so what? It's only one plausible interpretation. Unless we come across one of these again and the speculation gets confirmed we will never know. It's in the curiosity category, but in a complex universe we've got to expect to see things we don't understand from time to time. It's not actionable. So it's not so much the speculation that's crazy, it's the "and therefore peace, love and uniting humanity in a common, blah, blah" that's straying into the fruitcake zone. He'll find his audience, for sure, but with the uniting humanity stuff it's clear what audience he's aiming for.
- rich_sasha 6y agoI guess if it's true, and happened once in the era of never-before-so-comprehensive astronomical coverage (say O(10 years)), then it may well happen again. If it's some space rubbish from very, very far away, then so what, but if was aliens flying by, they may fly by again.
- shepardrtc 6y ago> If it's some space rubbish from very, very far away, then so what Technological waste from an advanced civilization might have technology or materials that we can learn from. I would argue that it is vastly more valuable than having a drive-by from beings that have no intention of contacting us.
- mseepgood 6y agoI would take him more seriously if he didn't want to sell a book.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoYup. A book is not a scientific paper. It can be debunked, but it doesn't really matter because it'll sell anyway.
- AnHonestComment 6y agoThat’s different than scientific papers how...?
- matthewdgreen 6y agoIt absolutely can be debunked, in just about the same way as a scientific paper. That is, people can write other papers and books tearing it to shreds. What people don’t like is that books tend to reach a broader audience and so that audience may not read the subsequent follow-up work debunking it. I’m torn on this because bringing science to a broader audience is generally a praiseworthy thing. (I would not have entered a scientific career but for some great science books.)
- crocal 6y agoThere is a difference between vulgarisation of science, and making money out of sensational unproven claims pretending it’s science. This is my moral compass in that matter.
- wegs 6y agoScientific papers aren't for money, but they are for faculty positions and tenure. They suffer from much of the same grandstanding and outright fabrication as books do. We're living in a post-truth era, and it's a problem we need to solve. Where I'd like to land isn't: "Harvard astronomer gets bullied by peers" or "Harvard astronomer makes millions of dollars from half-baked theory" but "Harvard astronomer presents half-baked theory, we have a serious conversation about it, and we treat it as a potential hypothesis." I like quirky hypotheses, and I've found I've learned a lot investigating them.
- jonsen 6y agoAs far as I know, there’s a Tezla Roadster out there.
- rctec 6y agoAfter reading more of "Harvard astronomer"'s comments, I think "paid us a visit" is a bit pointed and unfair. Considering the unknown odds and likelihood of life/ intelligent life in the universe, ranging from nil to high, it isn't unreasonable to propose that exceptionally unusual space junk is just that - flotsam or jetsam from others. We're certainly on track to be discarding large amounts of our own across the universe. Compare to the amount of plastic in the ocean - it has to go somewhere. Even if it acted under its own power, that doesn't mean that "it came here to spy on us", or that it noticed us at all. Even speculating on the purpose and function goes beyond reasonable, and Loeb doesn't.
- ericol 6y agoLast week the Spanish side of Vice published a post that literally said in the title "Most famous Harvard astronomer said aliens tried to contact us". I think that beats everything else I've read so far regarding this issue.
- InitialLastName 6y agoOTOH, his claims have actually probably made him the most famous Harvard astronomer. I pay little attention to astronomy, and I certainly can't name any other Harvard astronomers.
- gus_massa 6y agoI agree [1], just nitpicking: > Even if it acted under its own power, He doesn't claim it's self powered. He claims that it may have the form of a sheet instead of the form of the cigar. This shape is similar to a solar sail[2], and the shape cause a small acceleration by the solar light. [1] Every time this is repost, I'd like to repost an angry rant about pushing the "alien" solution for a problem where we clearly have not enough data. [2] That is casually his research field.
- criddell 6y agoHe was on Sean Carroll's podcast and he sounded pretty reasonable to me. He clearly doesn't think "aliens" is the only or necessarily even the best explanation, just one that can't be eliminated and it's worth thinking about.
- LatteLazy 6y agoI wish people would stop submitting this same story. Its been chewed over a few times here. https://www.google.com/search?q=harvard+astronomer+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&oq=harvard+astronomer+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&aqs=chrome..69i57.19950j0j7&client=ms-android-huawei-rev1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=harvard+astronomer+site%3Ane...
- acvny 6y agoEnough advertising this guy's new book already
- ianai 6y agoI’m kind of over this topic. He’s got a point and I agree with it in the main. I wish we had satellites we could pivot around circling all of our planets and major asteroids, for that matter. I think this situation highlights how little we’re doing to be aware of our solar system. But this topic has come up enough on HN.
- macspoofing 6y agoAvi Loeb has been making the podcast rounds pushing this idea in different forms. For example, he claims (with what feels is a very high level of certainty) that Oumuamua was an alien probe because it has a bunch of anomalous properties. He follows the Sherlock Holmes motto of: "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" ... except he doesn't know what he doesn't know, so he can't be certain about what is and isn't impossible.
- lithos 6y agoHe’s also throwing some fun shade in other interviews towards physicists that are obsessing over theories designed to be unprovable (multiverse, string theory, and similar). But are then utterly against something like his theory, even if it’s left in statistical form (IE: based on our current understanding, this object is x% likely to be unnatural). (Not in this article though)
- XorNot 6y ago> designed to be unprovable (multiverse, string theory, and similar) None of those are "designed" to be unprovable, and many make predictions, they just don't currently make predictions within the measurement capabilities of existing instruments or near-future instruments. Work on them is specifically oriented towards trying to find achievable measurements that they can uniquely predict the results of. They also don't have more mundane secondary explanations ("it looks like a rock and is a rock") because in most cases there just isn't one.
- macspoofing 6y ago>None of those are "designed" to be unprovable, and many make predictions, they just don't currently make predictions within the measurement capabilities of existing instruments or near-future instruments. It's worse than that. The obvious and natural theoretical predictions have already been ruled out by experimental discoveries like a positive cosmological constant, and lack of discovery of super-symmetric particles at the LHC. But those theories tend to be infinitely fine-tunable, so you can always find a way to make them 'fit' whatever you want. Also, I'm not sure if there is ANY experimental guidance that suggests something like string theory is actually worth pursuing as a description of reality ... but I hear the math beautiful.
- yawaworht1978 6y agoWe have emitted the Voyager gold plate and a Tesla car more recently. It could be a message, a test or alien waste, but all the one's dismissing the professor have not explained the acceleration and cha ge of trajectory in a satisfying or convincing manner. People really think the guy is financially desperate to cash in with a kookie book?
- ceejayoz 6y ago> all the one's dismissing the professor have not explained the acceleration and cha ge of trajectory in a satisfying or convincing manner I find the explanations pretty convincing. https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/solar-system/increase-in-oumuamuas-speed-through-the-solar-system-reveals-it-to-be-a-comet/ https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/solar-system/inc... > Davide Farnocchia of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, recognized ‘Oumuamua’s increased speed and altered path as consistent with the actions of comets, which eject gas and dust as they approach the Sun. These jets of ejected material increase the comets’ speeds by giving them a slight push. > People really think the guy is financially desperate to cash in with a kookie book? "People are often willing to lie for money" seems like a claim with a lot more evidence behind it.
- andrewflnr 6y agoWithout observing any outgassing, that explanation is only slightly less suppositional than the artificial one.
- ceejayoz 6y agoOutgassing is a known phenomenon. Alien probes are not, thus far.
- andrewflnr 6y agoHence the "slightly less", not "equally".
- peter_retief 6y agoThere is no evidence of alien life, articles' like this are just entertainment. It is an exciting idea but please lets not get ahead of ourselves.
- rafaelvasco 6y agoThere's plenty. You're just not looking for it, because you're not interested. That's ok. Just don't say that there's no evidence, say that you don't care.
- peter_retief 6y agoI am not aware of any evidence.
- jointpdf 6y agoYou and I are evidence. We are part of an advanced (or at least, spacefaring) technological civilization, and we are alien to everything else in the universe. Therefore, we know other alien civilizations are possible. One is much greater than zero in this case.
- ryder9 6y agothis is a dumb argument, you know exactly what someone means when they say "alien life", you're just twisting a definition to eek out a weird feeling of victory
- andrewflnr 6y agoCute, but don't equivocate. There's enough nonsense flying around already.
- jointpdf 6y agoIt’s a simple probabilistic argument: P(other alien civilizations exist | we exist) > P(other alien civilizations exist | we do not exist). Our existence is statistical evidence in favor of other civilizations existing elsewhere. Similarly, the fact that we observed planets in our solar system should have increased our belief that other planets exist elsewhere. Then again, Giordano Bruno (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno) was burned at the stake for pointing this out. To be honest, the dominant source of nonsense around here is sneering comments that contribute absolutely nothing to thoughtful conversation.
- Bombthecat 6y agoIf it is a probe, how does it send back data? The data would arrive, when the civilization, sending it away is probably gone.. Doesn't make sense.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoVoyager https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/index.html time capsule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_capsule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_capsule on edit: some links to things that might cause someone to think it might be done anyway, whether or not it makes sense.
- MikeDelta 6y agoBlockchain.
- throwaway316943 6y agoHe isn’t saying it’s a probe. He says that it kind of looks like and acts like a discarded light sail. The probe it belonged to could be in a different part of the galaxy having dropped the sail long ago and we just ran into it or if it was aimed at us then the probe could still be decelerating and about to enter the solar system at a velocity that would allow it to be captured by the Sun’s gravity.
- rafaelvasco 6y agoThe number of stories of alien encounters is so huge, and share so many common aspects between them, that at the minimum one must be open to the possibility. I mean, there's even official docs released by CIA and etc. The problem is, for each true story, there are 100 fake ones. For me personally I don't even speculate about it. They're here, and have been visiting us for hundreds of thousands of years.
- yters 6y agoLots of ghost stories and religious experiences and accounts of telekinesis and ESP. Are all those true as well?
- rafaelvasco 6y agoSome of them are I believe. After you have one experience you open yourself to the rest. I had several.
- ghostDancer 6y agoThe strange thing is that with that many people with experiences the James Randy Challenge never had to pay anything https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_...
- yters 6y agoI am curious why it has never been claimed. At least ESP seems to be very well documented from a scientific perspective.
- anoonmoose 6y agoAh, well, there's your problem: ESP has not been "very well documented from a scientific perspective", unless you mean that in the negative sense.
- abbassi 6y agoIf he was Chinese or Russian everybody would blame the ties with so-called authoritarian government.
- jwuphysics 6y agoI'm a little tired of articles mentioning "Harvard Astronomer" to add credibility to this ridiculous theory. Nobody else seriously believes this and we all know Avi wants to sell his book. Out of my network of ~200 astronomers/physicists, I haven't heard one person support the idea that this is an alien probe.
- cogman10 6y agoAnd why would it be? It was HUGE. Why on earth would aliens design a probe so large? It would take a ton of energy to make it to our solar system (like, a star exploding... hmmm..). If aliens have probed us, I DOUBT we would have actually noticed them. Because, likely the probe would be about the size of one of our satellites and maybe even a lot smaller to cut down on the amount of energy needed to get them here.
- hypertele-Xii 6y agoSize is so relative. You're thinking in human scale. Who says all life in the universe is the same size as us?
- jerf 6y agoAll life in the universe faces the same kinetic energy equations to cross the stars.
- hypertele-Xii 6y agoAnd if the stars are the equivalent of our atoms to a much larger form of life, what would it's nanotech look like to us?
- ceejayoz 6y agoProbably not the same energy availability, though.
- darthnebula 6y agoYou're making a lot of assumptions here and basing it on the limited knowledge of a specifies that has failed to make any significant strides into exploring anything other than its own solar system.
- marshmallow_12 6y agoassuming that aliens do exist and that they are advanced enough to have invented interstellar space travel, the following possibilities must be true: a) they can fly between stars but have not yet discovered earth or: b) they have discovered earth but for some reason have decided not to make themselves known to us. if a) is true, then we must sit and wait until we are discovered, it seems pointless to try and initiate contact on on our own. if b) is true then aliens are indeed aware of our existence. who knows why they are still hiding themselves from us... anything is possible. obviously we are powerless to force them to reveal themselves. and anyway, science has never been based on pointless speculation which is what prof. loebs theory amounts to.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- fractionalhare 6y ago> "These ideas that came to explain specific properties of 'Oumuamua always involve something that we have never seen before," said Loeb. "If that's the direction we are taking, then why not contemplate an artificial origin?" This reasoning seems strange to me. We discover new things in nature all the time. Why would we consider an artificial origin, when we're constantly revising our knowledge of the natural world?
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoIn other news, the Loch Ness Monster must be an alien too. Because it's hard to explain. Likewise Stonehenge was made by aliens, and the Utah Monolith.
- bugsur 6y agoInteresting that such a big part of the population believe god (one kind or another) exists but when someone thinks aliens exist, then they must be crazy.
- Chris2048 6y agoIf we are to be consistent, then a big part of the population must also be crazy. If we are to be rational, we tread carefully, and don't call them so. Alien believers are like "cult" members: small enough in number that's its safe to point out their craziness.
- Koshkin 6y agoJe n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.
- MikeDelta 6y agoWho knows, perhaps an alien threw out a cosmic cigarette butt and its discovery by us completely brings us into disarray, like the villagers in the movie 'The Gods must be crazy'.
- omosubi 6y agois there a term for when someone invokes galileo to support whatever theory they're pushing?
- cphoover 6y agoOOoooooo "Harvard"
- cupantae 6y agoI don't know the question that preceded it, but this kind of presumption of fallacy is not helpful and is akin to trolling: "Thinking that we are unique and special and privileged is arrogant [...] The correct approach is to be modest" Maybe his opponents are not being arrogant, but simply didn't come to the same conclusion as him, based on honest assessment of the facts. Nonetheless I must admit that I find Oumuamua very compelling as a candidate for alien technology; maybe I 30% believe it. Can't we just tone it down a bit? Yet another overly-polarised argument.
- davidg109 6y agoThere's a lot of parallels between this Harvard dude's theory, and some risk management material I've been studying lately. It goes something like this... yes, anything is possible. It's possible an alien launched a giant dildo-esque probe from 20 billion light years away as a means of wooing the citizens of Earth. But it's likely improbable to the point that it's near meaningless to even consider it. So what is the meaningful math behind this that provides a reasonable level of confidence behind the alien probe theory?
- Chris2048 6y agoGiven the reputation of alien probes, I think a super-huge dildo-shaped rock could be taken as a threat.
- dang 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26004523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26004523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25956720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25956720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21948804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21948804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18923591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18923591 Others?