Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Oh, sure -- all those Space Whales weren't enough for them ...
Instead of Star Trek IV rescuing whales (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_T...he_Voyage_Home) I was hoping that they were searching for the highly intelligent dung beetles. They roll little balls of dung to represent their home world. They even have brood dung balls where their kids can grow up and play so they are familiar with the way it was back home!
They also proposed a 'light sail' as the reason why the object was able to speed up - because there was no 'tail' which is usually made from ice being thrown off from the comet as it nears the Sun.
Quote:
As the visiting 'Oumuamua left our solar system, images showed that the object was speeding up. But other images captured as 'Oumuamua passed close to the sun showed no trailing tail and no halo of vapor — something that astronomers would expect to see in a water-releasing comet, the researchers wrote. Vapor off-gassing when a comet swings close by the sun also affects such an object's spin, but 'Oumuamua's spin appeared unchanged as it accelerated. Whatever 'Oumuamua is, it certainly didn't behave like a comet, the study authors reported.
But if 'Oumuamua didn't get a boost from evaporating ice, how did the object speed up? The likeliest explanation is solar radiation pressure — the force applied to an object's surface by sunlight — with 'Oumuamua acting as a "solar sail," the study said.
They also proposed a 'light sail' as the reason why the object was able to speed up - because there was no 'tail' which is usually made from ice being thrown off from the comet as it nears the Sun.
In that link they use terms like "might have" and "could also". They did not rule out natural origin. They simply said it was possible because they really did not know. While it was fast in our terms at about 65,000 mph; it was very slow when you consider the distances of space. The nearest sun is 4.22 light years from earth. There are some heavy hitters that are working with the Russians that hope they can approach 20% of the speed of light to go to our nearest star in 20 years (but they are still doing the studies): https://earthsky.org/space/alpha-centauri-travel-time. While the 65,000 mph speed of Oumuamua sounds fast, at about half that speed it took NASA 9.5 years to reach Pluto.
In that link they use terms like "might have" and "could also". They did not rule out natural origin. They simply said it was possible because they really did not know. While it was fast in our terms at about 65,000 mph; it was very slow when you consider the distances of space. The nearest sun is 4.22 light years from earth. There are some heavy hitters that are working with the Russians that hope they can approach 20% of the speed of light to go to our nearest star in 20 years (but they are still doing the studies): https://earthsky.org/space/alpha-centauri-travel-time. While the 65,000 mph speed of Oumuamua sounds fast, at about half that speed it took NASA 9.5 years to reach Pluto.
Yup. All true. That said, it does not necessarily rule out the possibility that such asteroids could be used for space travel.
We're assuming that 20 years is a long travel time for an intelligent alien species. It might not be. What if their average lifespan is 89,000 years? What if they are able to hibernate for centuries at a time? What if they left their physical bodies behind millennia ago and now exist solely as a mind that they can transfer into another vessel? Or what if they still have physical bodies but have found ways to stop the aging process altogether? What if it was simply an unmanned probe sent out by an alien species that went extinct when our ancestors were still living in trees? An intelligent species that achieved spaceflight 90,000 years ago could have found ways around all these problems.
We simply don't know for certain.
If I had to place my money, I'd bet Oumuamua was just a rather odd piece of rock flying around the cosmos. But we don't know for sure.
We better hope it was just an elongated space rock. A life form that has the technology to traverse interstellar space may see the human race as a form of life lower than an amoeba. The would squash us with no more regret than a human swatting an irksome fly.
Yup. All true. That said, it does not necessarily rule out the possibility that such asteroids could be used for space travel.
We're assuming that 20 years is a long travel time for an intelligent alien species. It might not be. What if their average lifespan is 89,000 years? What if they are able to hibernate for centuries at a time? What if they left their physical bodies behind millennia ago and now exist solely as a mind that they can transfer into another vessel? Or what if they still have physical bodies but have found ways to stop the aging process altogether? What if it was simply an unmanned probe sent out by an alien species that went extinct when our ancestors were still living in trees? An intelligent species that achieved spaceflight 90,000 years ago could have found ways around all these problems.
We simply don't know for certain.
If I had to place my money, I'd bet Oumuamua was just a rather odd piece of rock flying around the cosmos. But we don't know for sure.
Did you look at that link? What was interesting is how we plan to achieve a speed of 20% of the speed of light. They are talking about sending a 1,000 nanocrafts propelled by light sails and the light source would be lasers on earth. I think they still have a few bugs to work out.
We can speculate anything and that is what good science fiction writers do. That does not mean it is real or unreal because we will never be able to verify any of this.
If we send out 1,000 nancrafts I have to wonder if a robot planet will capture one and misread the very small printing like in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_T...otion_Picture? I always had a crush on Lieutenant Ilia because of her lack of a hair style. I tried to talk my wife into getting one of those cuts but she said: grow up!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
