Peculiarities of Oumuamua

[Sydde]

I suspect this is being overplayed, but a couple of Harvard astronomers are raising questions about the object that flew through the Solar System from interstellar space.

… raising the possibility that Oumuamua is an alien spacecraft. As they say in a paper to be published Nov. 12 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the object "may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization."

The researchers aren't claiming outright that aliens sent Oumuamua. But after a careful mathematical analysis of the way the interstellar object sped up as it shot past the sun, they say Oumuamua could be a spacecraft pushed through space by light falling on its surface — or, as they put it in the paper, a "lightsail of artificial origin."​

I think it is a piece that broke of

 

[Flynnstone]

Rendezvous with Rama

 

[ilawlin]

Sadly scientists have begun to sensationalize their findings. Even if there is a remote mathematical possibility of the seemingly outrageous, they may present it in such a manner as to cause ripples.

 

[Gutwrench]

If it was a probe from some ancient civilization it apparently concluded, “nothing to see here, moving along.”

 

[Sydde]

If it was a probe from some ancient civilization it apparently concluded, “nothing to see here, moving along.”

The ongoing search for intelligent life in the universe has made a pass through E-θ(чьюR)/2019538同浬Δ2: no evidence found; the search continues with the next nearest system.

 

[LizKat]

The ongoing search for intelligent life in the universe has made a pass through E-θ(чьюR)/2019538同浬Δ2: no evidence found; the search continues with the next nearest system.

Fade to remembered fragment of conversation overheard in a NYC diner north of 96th on Broadway.

"So what are we, just chopped liver?"

"May be, and maybe not even the best of that, in their view."

"Oh what do they know, who made them God?"

"Well exactly."
​

I had assumed for various reasons that that convo was about a faculty party that a couple of adjunct professors didn't get invited to up at Columbia University. But I suddenly think it's much more exciting to imagine they were critiquing some event chronicled by the astronomy department.