I do not like being the "I told you so" type but a few days later and we now have the alleged science types joining in on the Oumuamua story.
At times science types behave like the debunkers, ufologists and cryptozoologists and Bigfooters. They will name call and make comments that sound as though they are coming from bratty little kids. Just read the comments presented here:
Now I do -I really do- understand the sort of thing that leads to scientists saying "It ain't aliens!" however, perhaps the most foot-stamping brat-like and unscientific attitude is the one resulting in "It's never aliens!" The only greater stupid and totally unscientific comment (Dr Brian Cox gets the gold cup here) is: "There is no alien life. They will have killed themselves by now!" Yes, the man who promotes science and its principles had a dumb-ass brain-mouth fart.
The internet has made it so that every moron or attention seeker gets their few minutes of stupidity. Here is the thing though; astronomers will insult other astronomers because their theories are different. The point of Science is that you unbiasedly gather and study the data. You can then formulate a theory and present it in a paper that gets published and peer reviewed. Points and problems in the theory are discussed.
Now you see why these people never even bother assessing a UFO report; it is because ego and self importance and a nicely paid sit-on-your-ass-all-day job is their world. I do not care what who tweets. Write a paper or post a sensible response online. You want people to pay attention to you so you tweet a lot? Kid, maybe your employers should look at what actual work you do.
The New Mexico Solar Observatory was not closed down because a massive fleet of alien space craft emerged through a black from one universe and out of our sun. Seriously...that theory comes from someone who fell and badly bumped their head. However, you have a scientific theory on how that would even work I am interested. Incidentally, the closure did not occur as we were about the be "hit by an extinction level solar eruption" and 'Nibiru' was not about to collide with Earth. Use logic and a brain cell.
Oh, the faults with telescopes in space was due to a cover-up of alien craft (some Earth sized apparently) passing through our solar system.
The internet can be useful but appears full of 90% garbage -from scientific and unscientific sources.
"It's never aliens!" is a statement that needs to be quantified each time it is used and not tweeted like some fart that has been building up all day. In facts, farts provide a useful function.
So I wonder, do the "It's never aliens!" fraternity just have continuing spats with the SETI and CETI people -their colleagues? They seem to support SETI/CETI but then suggest that there are no aliens...so SETI/CETI ought to ignore any signals it picks up because "It's not aliens!"?
It goes to show why I think that there are too many attention seeking, money-grubbers in astronomy. These people will not take the time to explain things to the public in a simple way so that things are understood yet will jump in and have a hissy-fit on Twitter after everything is over because they then feel safe. Imagine if when Oumuamua was detected they screeched out of their prams "It's not aliens!" and a few days later it was announced that odd signals came from the object? It's heading out of our solar system and we are still not clear what Oumuamua is. My bet is space debris -a fragment of space rock.
"Space" is massive and we do not really know 1% about it. We make discoveries all the time and offer explanations...that get shot down until a new theory arrives. Nothing is 100% proven every time. It is data gathering and theories.
Those in Science need to act like adult.
As for METI -Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence" -they are messaging who now?? Well, it's there to make a "study of alien contact" -including UFO reports? I think I need to find out what METI is exactly and how many messages they've answered :-P
‘Oumuamua, oh my! Was interstellar object actually an alien solar sail? Not so fast
‘Oumuamua is long gone from the inner solar system, but the mystery surrounding the interstellar interloper has been rekindled, thanks to a research paper written by two Harvard astronomers.
The paper, suggesting that the cigar-shaped object could have been an alien light sail, sparked headlines as well as skepticism from colleagues claiming that the astronomers were jumping to conclusions.
Among the skeptics is Doug Vakoch, who heads up METI, a San Francisco-based organization devoted to the study of alien contact. (The acronym stands for “Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence.”)
“I’d love to think that ‘Oumuamua is an extraterrestrial spacecraft that whipped past Earth, propelled by a stream of photons hitting its solar sail. But we need to be wary of conjuring up an explanation that fits the data gathered at one point in time, when we have no opportunity for follow-up observations,” Vakoch told me in an email.
The claims from Shmuel Bialy and Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics are based on an analysis of ‘Oumuamua’s orbital trajectory, which brought it inward from interstellar space, around the sun, and then back outward in late 2017.
Researchers found that the object was subject to a bit of extra acceleration that couldn’t be explained by gravitational influences.
If ‘Oumuaumua (which was given a Hawaiian name meaning “a messenger from afar arriving first”) was a comet, the extra push might have been caused by the rocket-style effect of outgassing. And in fact that’s exactly what scientists surmised this summer, based on an analysis they published in the journal Nature.
Bialy and Loeb, however, say ‘Oumuamua showed no outward signs of outgassing while it was under observation. Instead, they consider whether the acceleration could have been caused by solar radiation pressure on the object. Their calculations showed that such could be the case, but only if the object was a broad sheet of material less than a millimeter thick.
“One possibility is that ‘Oumuamua is a lightsail, floating in interstellar space as a [piece of] debris from advanced technological equipment,” the authors write. Such a sheet could have survived the trip from another star system and would account for the object’s unusual dimensions, they say.
“Alternatively, a more exotic scenario is that ‘Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization,” they add.
Talk about clickbait … As you could imagine, some publications had a field day with the astronomers’ tentative claims. “Mysterious interstellar object Oumuamua ‘SENT BY ALIENS’ to survey galaxy – Harvard,” one headline read.
It’s natural for Loeb to think about alien light sails, considering that he chairs the advisory committee for the $100 million Breakthrough Starshot project. Starshot is aiming to send fleets of lightsail-propelled nanoprobes past the Alpha Centauri star system (and any planets that exist there) sometime in the next couple of decades. The research paper even refers to Starshot in its discussion of the alien lightsail hypothesis.
But if you follow the late Carl Sagan’s dictum that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, then proving the hypothesis may be a lost cause. Even Bialy and Loeb acknowledge that ‘Oumuamua is now too distant to observe, either with existing telescopes or space probes. Instead, they suggest keeping watch for other oddballs like ‘Oumuamua.
“Deep wide-area surveys of the type expected with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescopewill be particularly powerful in searching for additional members of ‘Oumuamua’s population of objects,” they write. “A survey for lightsails as technosignatures in the solar system is warranted, irrespective of whether ‘Oumuamua is one of them.”
Vakoch agreed. ” ‘Oumuamua is a modern-day Wow! Signal — something so freakish that it just might be from an advanced civilization, but so elusive that we’ll never know,” he told me. “SETI is an inherently conservative science, and ‘Oumuamua just doesn’t satisfy the stringent requirements for a confirmed detection of alien technology.”
At least it got Elon Musk’s attention. Here’s a roundup of tweets reflecting on the ‘Oumuamua mystery:
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