So What Was That Strange Thing?
By James Donahue
It was on October 19, 2017, that Hawaiian astronomer Robert Weryk first detected the mystery traveler, a shiny small cigar shaped object tumbling and traveling at high speed through our solar system. Unfortunately, by the time it was spotted, the object had already reached its nearest point to Earth about 40 days earlier and was zipping some 21 million miles away from us and tumbling back to its origins somewhere in deep space.
One would think such things fly through our solar system all the time but apparently they don’t. And because it was so uniquely different from the routine flying rocks and comets that orbit this inner sphere of planets, moons and sun, it has excited the world of astronomers. Apparently visitors from deep space rarely happen . . . if ever. This is the first time it has ever been recorded.
It has been named “Oumuamua,” a Hawaiian word when means “scout,” or “first distant messenger.” The name was chosen by the team at the Pan-STARRS telescope with the help of Larry Kimura, professor of Hawaiian language at the University of Hawaii, Hilo.
Because it was too small for our satellite cameras to capture an accurate picture we are left with an artist’s concept of what it looked like. The data collected found the object to have an elongated, cigar-shape that was apparently clear of dust and dirt so there was no flare of a tail like a comet makes. One report said it had a reddish hue that reflected light. And it was tumbling as it zipped through our solar system as if it was slingshot from other worlds.
So where did it come from and was it orbiting some sun in a nearby solar system? A paper published this year by Harvard University astronomers suggests that it may have been a probe sent by an alien race to look over our unique solar system. “Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization,” wrote Professor Abraham Loeb and Shmuel Bialy, a postdoctoral scholar at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The Harvard researchers said they reached this conclusion because of the unexpected acceleration trajectory that occurred after it swung past the sun. This suggested that Oumuamua was propelled by sunlight. The other factor was the fact that the object had no cometary tail and its route through our system deviated from a trajectory solely dictated by the gravity of the sun, Loeb said in an interview with Salon.
Another thought by Loeb is that Oumuamua may have been driven by light-sail. This is a yet untested concept proposed by NASA that suggests space craft may someday be driven by light from the sun. In order for this to be in any way effective, Loeb said in his Salon interview, the craft “needs to be less than a millimeter in thickness, like a sail.” But the evidence found to date does not support this.
The Harvard theory has not been accepted by the astrophysics community, which should not be surprising. Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist at Ohio State University, tossed in his two-cents when he said: “My main critique is that as soon as you introduce aliens as a hypothesis you stop doing science, because aliens are capable of doing anything they want.”
And at the SETI Institute, senior astronomer Seth Shostak was quoted as saying: “It’s certainly ingenious to show that an object the size of Oumuamua might be sent by aliens to another star system with nothing but a solar sail for power. But one should not blindly accept this clever hypothesis when there is also a mundane (and a more likely) explanation for Oumuamua – namely that it’s a comet or asteroid from afar.”
All of this commentary about the study of a mysterious cigar-shaped object that is zipping through our solar system from other worlds is interesting. It seems that our space research is zeroing in on potential life outside of our own world. As more and more evidence points to a potential extinction of life on our own planet because of careless overpopulation, pollution and seizure of natural resources, and our unwillingness to change our ways, this appears to be a last ditch effort to find somewhere new for humanity to run.
How sad it would be if Oumuamua reflects a last ditch effort by an alien race to flee from its own proclivities.
By James Donahue
It was on October 19, 2017, that Hawaiian astronomer Robert Weryk first detected the mystery traveler, a shiny small cigar shaped object tumbling and traveling at high speed through our solar system. Unfortunately, by the time it was spotted, the object had already reached its nearest point to Earth about 40 days earlier and was zipping some 21 million miles away from us and tumbling back to its origins somewhere in deep space.
One would think such things fly through our solar system all the time but apparently they don’t. And because it was so uniquely different from the routine flying rocks and comets that orbit this inner sphere of planets, moons and sun, it has excited the world of astronomers. Apparently visitors from deep space rarely happen . . . if ever. This is the first time it has ever been recorded.
It has been named “Oumuamua,” a Hawaiian word when means “scout,” or “first distant messenger.” The name was chosen by the team at the Pan-STARRS telescope with the help of Larry Kimura, professor of Hawaiian language at the University of Hawaii, Hilo.
Because it was too small for our satellite cameras to capture an accurate picture we are left with an artist’s concept of what it looked like. The data collected found the object to have an elongated, cigar-shape that was apparently clear of dust and dirt so there was no flare of a tail like a comet makes. One report said it had a reddish hue that reflected light. And it was tumbling as it zipped through our solar system as if it was slingshot from other worlds.
So where did it come from and was it orbiting some sun in a nearby solar system? A paper published this year by Harvard University astronomers suggests that it may have been a probe sent by an alien race to look over our unique solar system. “Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization,” wrote Professor Abraham Loeb and Shmuel Bialy, a postdoctoral scholar at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The Harvard researchers said they reached this conclusion because of the unexpected acceleration trajectory that occurred after it swung past the sun. This suggested that Oumuamua was propelled by sunlight. The other factor was the fact that the object had no cometary tail and its route through our system deviated from a trajectory solely dictated by the gravity of the sun, Loeb said in an interview with Salon.
Another thought by Loeb is that Oumuamua may have been driven by light-sail. This is a yet untested concept proposed by NASA that suggests space craft may someday be driven by light from the sun. In order for this to be in any way effective, Loeb said in his Salon interview, the craft “needs to be less than a millimeter in thickness, like a sail.” But the evidence found to date does not support this.
The Harvard theory has not been accepted by the astrophysics community, which should not be surprising. Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist at Ohio State University, tossed in his two-cents when he said: “My main critique is that as soon as you introduce aliens as a hypothesis you stop doing science, because aliens are capable of doing anything they want.”
And at the SETI Institute, senior astronomer Seth Shostak was quoted as saying: “It’s certainly ingenious to show that an object the size of Oumuamua might be sent by aliens to another star system with nothing but a solar sail for power. But one should not blindly accept this clever hypothesis when there is also a mundane (and a more likely) explanation for Oumuamua – namely that it’s a comet or asteroid from afar.”
All of this commentary about the study of a mysterious cigar-shaped object that is zipping through our solar system from other worlds is interesting. It seems that our space research is zeroing in on potential life outside of our own world. As more and more evidence points to a potential extinction of life on our own planet because of careless overpopulation, pollution and seizure of natural resources, and our unwillingness to change our ways, this appears to be a last ditch effort to find somewhere new for humanity to run.
How sad it would be if Oumuamua reflects a last ditch effort by an alien race to flee from its own proclivities.