Tag: Oumuamua

The Strange Interstellar Object Oumuamua Was a Comet and Not The Space Probe Some Had Proposed

New research concludes that the interstellar object that entered our solar system and then rocketed out was a small comet and not a spacecraft, as some had speculated. (JPL/NASA)

In 2017, an  unusual small object flew into our solar system from afar,  approached the inner solar system and the Sun and then sped back out to interstellar space.  In all, it was detected and followed for 11 days.

The object was puzzling because such interstellar visitors had not been observed before, and most mysterious because it accelerated in a most unusual way out of the solar system.  This was not the normal behavior of any object in the solar system.

The object, a few hundred meters in length, was first identified as an asteroid because it had not of the sparkle of a comet, and a “dark comet” was proposed, and  then  something perhaps sent by aliens to explore the solar system.  After all, the shape of the object known as ‘Oumuamua — Hawaiian for “Scout”– was described as reddish and sometimes shaped like a pancake and sometimes like a cigar.

‘Oumuamua became an object of great fascination among space scientists and even became the subject a popular book by a Harvard astronomer who argued that it was clearly an alien lightsail. That is, a probe that is propelled by the propulsive radiation of starlight itself.

Now, a paper offers a very different, and apparently quite compelling, explanation.,

In Nature, University of California, Berkeley astrochemist Jennifer Bregner and Cornell University astronomer Darryl propose that the comet’s mysterious deviations from a typical object’s path around the Sun can be explained by a simple physical mechanism likely common among many icy comets: outgassing of hydrogen as the comet warmed up in the sunlight.

What made ‘Oumuamua different from every other well-studied comet in our solar system was its size. It was so small that the gravitational nudge it received around the Sun was slightly altered by the tiny push created when hydrogen gas spurted out of the ice.

And that’s what caused the acceleration, the scientists say.

An artist rendering of ‘Oumuamua, the first known alien object to enter our solar system. It was identified by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii. It was later followed by observatories around the world and astronomers generally concluded that it had been traveling for millions of years before its chance encounter with our solar system.

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Artifacts In Space

Voyager 2 entered interstellar space last month, becoming a space “artifact” of our civilization. (NASA)

 

All of a sudden, we have spacecraft and objects both coming into our solar system and leaving for interstellar space. This is highly unusual, and very intriguing.

The departing spacecraft is Voyager 2, which launched in 1977 and has traveled spaceward some 11 billion miles.  It has now officially left the heliosphere, the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the sun.  In this it follows Voyager I – which left our solar system in 2012 — and managers of the two craft have reason to think they can travel until they cross the half-century mark.

This is taking place the same time that scientists are puzzling over the nature of a cigar-shaped object that flew into the solar system from interstellar space last year.

Nobody knows what the object – called Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “first messenger,” or “scout” – really is. The more likely possibilities of it being a comet or an solar system asteroid have been found to be inconsistent with some observed properties of the visitor, and this has led some senior scientists to even hypothesize that it just might be an alien probe.

The likelihood may be small, but it was substantial enough for Harvard University Astronomy Department Chairman Avi Loeb to co-author a paper presenting the possibility.  In the Astrophysical Journal Letters, Loeb and postdoc Shmuel Bialy wrote that the object “may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.”

They also say the object has some characteristics of a “lightsail of artificial origins,” rather like the one that Loeb is working on as chairman of the Breakthrough Starshot advisory committee.  The well-funded private effort is hoping to develop ways to send a fleet of tiny lightsail probes to the star system nearest to us, Alpha Centauri.

 

This artist’s impression of the first detected interstellar visitor: Oumuamua. This object was discovered in October 2017 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii. Subsequent observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and other observatories around the world show that it was traveling through space for millions of years before its seemingly chance encounter with our star system.  But some scientists wonder:  might it be instead a probe sent into the cosmos by intelligent creatures?(NASA)

 

Put the two phenomenon together — the coming into our solar system and the going out — and you have a pathway into the world of alien “artifacts,” products of civilizations near and far. … Read more

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