Harvard astronomers: Cigar-shaped intersteller object may have been alien probe

[Firatha]

Care to explain what exactly makes this a liberal conspiracy theory? Or are you just doing a drive-by shitpost?

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Yeah my bad, I added it in now.

This even being a news story is a drive by shit posting go read the the research its pretty cool this whole news spin makes is look like shit or just watch this video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJP5l7Yp3A

No, science is doing research and then making statements based on the information you've gathered, not making fantastically outlandish statements when the rest of the astronomers community is fairly sure it's a comet or an asteroid.

But then again, that wouldn't be much a headline, huh?

:thinking:

Not just a come!t The fastest comet!

[Paperfox]

At least it wasn't cube shaped. Means we're still safe from Borg invasion for couple hundred years

It hasn't shut down all electrical and defensive systems, but then we still do have some whales.

[Machismo]

No it's not. The F-111 Nighthawk, stealth fighter was kept secret for decades. And there are other things I am not at liberality to say, the public knows nothing about other than rumors.

Jesus, are you still on the whole shtick that you know tons of secrets?

Either you are hinting at classified information that you shouldn't, and you can be arrested for it... or you are full of shit.

[Biomega]

Yes, this may have been an alien probe.

Or it may not have been.

We don't know. We know next to nothing about it, in fact. We know some velocities and trajectories, but with an object that size there's an entire catalog of possible forces that could account for that. We also know the shape, and that's perhaps the most unusual thing about it - but at this distance and with so little info about its composition, origin, etc. there are just so many other possible explanations. We know from experience how bizarre nature's shapes can be at times - and our experience is, at stellar scales, very limited indeed.

The paper was obviously written for publicity. It's succeeding at that.

[Deleted]

You forgot to post the link.

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Why is it "liberal"? Why is it a conspiracy? Looks to me like you're really trying hard to be offended and play the victim, derailing an entirely innocent discussion with your drivel.

Dont you know the earth is flat and 2000 years old? Adam and eve the tree branch fucked, and their children fucked each other and that's how we came to be. It also explains the amount of retards we have these days.

It does look like something which has seen the inside of a colon.

[yetgdhfgh]

I dont believe its aliens.... But IMO its aliens

[Deletedaccount1]

They know that it spun around rapidly as it moved. Why would any type of craft be designed like that?

[apples]

They know that it spun around rapidly as it moved. Why would any type of craft be designed like that?

there are like 100 different reasons why. one of them is to create a repulsion shield

[MrPaladinGuy]

It's a good thing Humpback Whales aren't extinct, yet.

[Adam Jensen]

To quote Matt O'Dowde of PBS Space Time, you know, that show on Youtube I watch to pretend I understand physics, but I don't, "it's not aliens . . . until it is."

It's a cigar shaped asteroid. It's going faster than we expect because of some factor that we missed. The odds of some aliens just randomly cavorting through our neighborhood is stupidly low.

I might not get astrophysics . . . but I do know it's a big fucking universe.

[Kaleredar]

there are like 100 different reasons why. one of them is to create a repulsion shield

And there are about a trillion more likely explanations that it being some random piece of alien debris we happened to find.

[Blobfish]

I think it is very arrogant of us Humans to think that we are the only ones in the Universe.

I also think that very fast space travel through space is maybe a concept that we have not fathomed out yet.

Maybe Oumuamua was on a reconnaissance mission.

And in a few years we may experience a real life "Independence Day"

Lets hope we have a strong World Leader like President Donald Trump, should that happen.

https://www.space.com/42352-oumuamua...ight-sail.html

[Aurrora]

Did it fly into Uranus? If not it's probably not an alien probe.

Seriously, how did this get to page three without a Uranus joke?

[Noomz]

Dont you know the earth is flat and 2000 years old? Adam and eve the tree branch fucked, and their children fucked each other and that's how we came to be. It also explains the amount of retards we have these days.

It does look like something which has seen the inside of a colon.

Cthulhu's sentient poop.

[Deleted]

It's a very slow clump to be much of a probe. In 11000 of your Earth years it will be one light year away.

[cubby]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/06/healt...ntl/index.html

Now I'm not saying it was aliens........but it was aliens.

Right? I mean - this is pretty freakin' awesome. In an interstellar sense, of course.

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People need to stfu until we see definitive proof. Its the same shit over and over again.

But we won't see scientifically definitive proof. We almost literally can't. The object is gone, and we couldn't catch it in the next 100 years if we wanted to, and all we have is what we saw when it sailed through.

Also, IIRC, it's the first interstellar object to pass through our solar system - at least that we know about. Pretty different shit if you ask me.

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"The object, nicknamed 'Oumuamua, meaning "a messenger that reaches out from the distant past" in Hawaiian"

shit like this is how these articles convince people... they named it that, so telling us the name means something ominous in a different language is completely pointless.

The object, nicknamed 'Oogaboogajooga, meaning "definitely an alien object from far far away" in Ugandan"... like what the fuck, they gave it the name. I know they gave it that name for a reason and blah blah blah, but people toss stuff like this around as though it adds to the credibility and it does the exact opposite. Give me some quotes from Neil deGrasse Tyson or any respected astrophysicist talking about what it was or could have been and I'm all in and excited to read that. I'm guessing at least a few of them touched on it, but what I don't need to read about is what a few stoners from Hawaii decided to name it while they were staring at the stars and wondering what it all means.

Except the name they gave it is literally true. An object from the distant past.

edit: Okay a simple google search shows that Tyson already did weigh in on it, said it was likely a cluster of objects that look elongated and the movement through our solar system was 100% guided by gravity alone. So if this was an alien ship it flew through our entire solar system without ever turning on an engine. So... this is space shit doing space shit, and almost certainly not aliens. Glad we could figure this out.

Not doing something proves what it is? Ok. Next up . . . . Seriously though, if it was a colony ship it's possible it wouldn't turn on it's engines until it was close to it's destination.

I'm trying to figure out why you're so pissed about this. It's science doing sciency things. Why are you weighing in and then shitting all over it?

[Xeranath]

And in a few years we may experience a real life "Independence Day"

Lets hope we have a strong World Leader like President Donald Trump, should that happen.

Nah, Lyin' Donald would just try to deport them.

[cubby]

I only read a news article not the actual article, but my understanding was that even if the object originated from an alien civilization it wasn't functional anymore. So basically at best it was "dead" piece of alien debris.

A colony ship powered even with antimatter would tend to coast a significant portion of the trip. That could have been this.

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Yes, this may have been an alien probe.

Or it may not have been.

We don't know. We know next to nothing about it, in fact. We know some velocities and trajectories, but with an object that size there's an entire catalog of possible forces that could account for that. We also know the shape, and that's perhaps the most unusual thing about it - but at this distance and with so little info about its composition, origin, etc. there are just so many other possible explanations. We know from experience how bizarre nature's shapes can be at times - and our experience is, at stellar scales, very limited indeed.

The paper was obviously written for publicity. It's succeeding at that.

Why is the shape the most unusual thing about it?

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They know that it spun around rapidly as it moved. Why would any type of craft be designed like that?

Gravity? Also, answers we don't know yet. I mean . . . seriously? You're asking why an alien craft would do something we don't understand?

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It's a very slow clump to be much of a probe. In 11000 of your Earth years it will be one light year away.

That's pretty slow for a colony ship. 87 kp/s is way too fucking slow for almost anything living (i.e. alien). Shoot. Tumbling too - definitely a negatory on aliens. Fooey.

[Mormolyce]

Accounting for Vega's proper motion, it would have taken ʻOumuamua 600,000 years to reach the Solar System from Vega.[29] But as a nearby star, Vega was not in the same part of the sky at that time.[40] Astronomers calculate that one hundred years ago the asteroid was 561 ± 0.6 AU (83.9 ± 0.090 billion km; 52.1 ± 0.056 billion mi) from the Sun and traveling at 26.33 km/s with respect to the Sun.[9] This interstellar speed is very close to the mean motion of material in the Milky Way in the neighborhood of the Sun, also known as the local standard of rest (LSR), and especially close to the mean motion of a relatively close group of red dwarfs. This velocity profile also indicates an extrasolar origin, but appears to rule out the closest dozen stars.[54] In fact, the strong correlation between ʻOumuamua's velocity and the local standard of rest might mean that it has circulated the Milky Way several times and thus may have originated from an entirely different part of the galaxy.[29]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua

It's just a rock.

Apparently it was originally going to be called Rama (after the ship in the Arthur C. Clarke novel) but this was just a reference to its extrasolar origins. Once again the pop sci journalists have let their imaginations run wild.

[wunksta]

Sometimes a cigar-shaped interstellar object is just a cigar-shaped asteroid.