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Avi Loeb at Harvard is the one advocating for interpreting this as an alien probe. He writes a very large number of very short papers, sort of idea papers, and
by Isamu 4y ago
Avi Loeb at Harvard is the one advocating for interpreting this as an alien probe. He writes a very large number of very short papers, sort of idea papers, and he views himself as providing stimulating ideas.
The object was interesting in that it wasn’t just a sphere, it had a non-spherical shape. And beyond that is speculation, the actual shape is not well established, let alone whether it has a shape that suggests aliens.
- colordrops 4y agoHe also talks about how it had no contrail and accelerated without ejecting mass. One of the only things we know of that could do that is a solar sail.
- 93po 4y agoI would then wonder the accuracy by which we measure those two things, since it seems like an inaccurate measurement is the most likely answer
- colordrops 4y agoI'd trust a chair of Harvard physics over a anonymous HN commenter on this one. Not to appeal to authority, but there really isn't any other option here.
- 93po 4y agoI trust their domain expertise. I don't trust their incentives. Success in academia seems to be largely based on making bold claims (sometimes through questionable statistics applied to questionable research methods). And Avi Loeb is definitely demonstrating this desire because he literally wrote and sold a book on Amazon based on his views and it's quite successful and popular. Also let's just apply some common sense: Oumuamua is traveling at 315,000 km/hr. It came from the direction of Vega, which is 25 light years away. A light year is 9.46 trillion kilometers. That's 3,428 years of travel time to reach us. It doesn't make sense to me that an alien presence capable of traveling for 3,428 years straight would be doing so at a speed that slow and would pass so close to us but also not interact with us at all. Also if we're going to appeal to authority: the academic community consensus is that it's a natural object. Avi Loeb is in the very small minority to suggest it isn't, and most people actively disagree with him.
- thro1 4y ago315,000 km/hr could be as well the speed to which it decelerated near Solar System, we have no data about its earlier speed. And not much slower makes to much risk not knowing if we possibly could be able to catch it.
- thro1 4y agoI'm thinking about a range in lightyears same as years since changes on our planet could be detectable from such distance, from where one of fast moving automated probes economically could change trajectory toward our system by next slingshot, and comming at such speed at such time - if that speed does make any sense regarding other parameters: could we estimate or guess the cases from where then how far and how often those could go (the sizes of theoretical dominiums) and the time till next similar (but nothing about different efort) visit could happen the soonest (if the first one noticed could happen so fast, if it could transmit back..) - in case we could be not sure about that one, if it wasn't routine or not accidential.. ? (even if just only to be aware of possible scales and terms..) .. and when we will make our next intertellar probes, couldn't we make them be navigating opportunistically and trying to come back (not to confuse the universe for ethernity) ?
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