Post by Andrei Tchentchik on Jun 17, 2019 11:00:39 GMT 2
(.#197).- The strange acceleration of the asteroid Oumuamua ... alien ship?
The strange acceleration of the asteroid Oumuamua feeds the alien spaceship fantasies ?
By Tristan Vey - Updated on the 07/11/2018 at 07:09
www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/2018/11/06/01008-20181106ARTFIG00256-l-etrange-acceleration-de-l-asteroide-8216oumuamua-alimente-les-fantasmes-de-vaisseau-alien.php
Researchers at Harvard University question the possibility that this object is actually a stellar veil in perdition. This scenario, however, seems extremely unlikely. Explanations.
And if 'Oumuamua, the asteroid discovered in October 2017 that ran through our solar system at full speed before heading back into the depths of space, was an alien ship? This scenario a little far-fetched, if not to say a lot, resurfaced in recent days. Mainly because it is being considered by a renowned theoretical physicist, Abraham Loeb, director of the Institute of Theory and Computation, at Harvard University. In an article published in the journal Astrophysical Journal and posted on the server arXiv, the researcher considers that this object can be a "stellar veil" sent by a distant civilization a long time ago.
Let's be honest: there is very little chance that this is the case. However, it is a very serious study published in late June in the journal Nature that feeds today these speculations relatively fanciful. A team of astronomers led by Marco Micheli, the Coordination Center for the study of near-Earth asteroids of the European Space Agency, had then noted that the unknown object was undergoing a strange "non-gravitational acceleration". To understand, in short, that he was going faster and faster for an indeterminate reason.
Let's put it again: no one has ever thought that it could be a working vessel in the process of regaining speed after a short detour through our home ... The fluctuating brightness of the object suggests that it is very elongated (which is in itself very surprising) but also that it turns on itself a little messy. If it really was a ship, it would be rather in perdition ...
This is not the scenario that the authors imagined then. They indeed took care to specify that 'Oumuamua was probably "degassing", that is to say to see some of its solid ice sublimate under the effect of solar radiation. Like a balloon that empties its air. This phenomenon alone could explain the small acceleration detected by the different terrestrial and space observatories.
Why will Abraham Loeb go farther then? Simply because the astronomers did not observe this degassing when the asteroid was closer to the Sun. Which is a little surprising, it is true, but not impossible either. In any case, it is more likely than the hypothesis of an abandoned sail on which the photons of our star would exert sufficient pressure to accelerate it continuously. On the purely digital level, the hypothesis may be the road (in any case what the researcher strives to show, with the help of a post-doc, Shmuel Bialy), but it remains highly speculative.
If it is not forbidden to dream, much less to submit the strangest ideas to a critical examination, one can also legitimately wonder about the deep motivations of the two researchers. Abraham Loeb is indeed very involved in the Breakthrough Initiatives program, funded by Russian magnate Yuri Milner, whose aim is both to detect an intelligent life in the universe (if it exists) and to invent a probe capable of visit the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, located 4 light years from us. The Russian has invested more than 200 million dollars for this.
The "listening" part of the program, Breakthrough Listen, had financed the Oumuamua object's observations in the radio domain, before it was definitely out of reach from January 2018. This was indeed worth try, you never know, but as expected, it did not help. One wonders a little this time why researchers have given as much publicity to their work. If not to feed the fantasies of the general public ... and their generous donor.
F I N .
The strange acceleration of the asteroid Oumuamua feeds the alien spaceship fantasies ?
By Tristan Vey - Updated on the 07/11/2018 at 07:09
www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/2018/11/06/01008-20181106ARTFIG00256-l-etrange-acceleration-de-l-asteroide-8216oumuamua-alimente-les-fantasmes-de-vaisseau-alien.php
Researchers at Harvard University question the possibility that this object is actually a stellar veil in perdition. This scenario, however, seems extremely unlikely. Explanations.
And if 'Oumuamua, the asteroid discovered in October 2017 that ran through our solar system at full speed before heading back into the depths of space, was an alien ship? This scenario a little far-fetched, if not to say a lot, resurfaced in recent days. Mainly because it is being considered by a renowned theoretical physicist, Abraham Loeb, director of the Institute of Theory and Computation, at Harvard University. In an article published in the journal Astrophysical Journal and posted on the server arXiv, the researcher considers that this object can be a "stellar veil" sent by a distant civilization a long time ago.
Let's be honest: there is very little chance that this is the case. However, it is a very serious study published in late June in the journal Nature that feeds today these speculations relatively fanciful. A team of astronomers led by Marco Micheli, the Coordination Center for the study of near-Earth asteroids of the European Space Agency, had then noted that the unknown object was undergoing a strange "non-gravitational acceleration". To understand, in short, that he was going faster and faster for an indeterminate reason.
Let's put it again: no one has ever thought that it could be a working vessel in the process of regaining speed after a short detour through our home ... The fluctuating brightness of the object suggests that it is very elongated (which is in itself very surprising) but also that it turns on itself a little messy. If it really was a ship, it would be rather in perdition ...
This is not the scenario that the authors imagined then. They indeed took care to specify that 'Oumuamua was probably "degassing", that is to say to see some of its solid ice sublimate under the effect of solar radiation. Like a balloon that empties its air. This phenomenon alone could explain the small acceleration detected by the different terrestrial and space observatories.
Why will Abraham Loeb go farther then? Simply because the astronomers did not observe this degassing when the asteroid was closer to the Sun. Which is a little surprising, it is true, but not impossible either. In any case, it is more likely than the hypothesis of an abandoned sail on which the photons of our star would exert sufficient pressure to accelerate it continuously. On the purely digital level, the hypothesis may be the road (in any case what the researcher strives to show, with the help of a post-doc, Shmuel Bialy), but it remains highly speculative.
If it is not forbidden to dream, much less to submit the strangest ideas to a critical examination, one can also legitimately wonder about the deep motivations of the two researchers. Abraham Loeb is indeed very involved in the Breakthrough Initiatives program, funded by Russian magnate Yuri Milner, whose aim is both to detect an intelligent life in the universe (if it exists) and to invent a probe capable of visit the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, located 4 light years from us. The Russian has invested more than 200 million dollars for this.
The "listening" part of the program, Breakthrough Listen, had financed the Oumuamua object's observations in the radio domain, before it was definitely out of reach from January 2018. This was indeed worth try, you never know, but as expected, it did not help. One wonders a little this time why researchers have given as much publicity to their work. If not to feed the fantasies of the general public ... and their generous donor.
F I N .
