'Oumuamua may be an extraterrestrial solar sail

[UM-Bot]

Harvard astronomers have suggested that the first known interstellar visitor could be an alien probe.

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/322994/oumuamua-may-be-an-extraterrestrial-solar-sail

[CloudSix]

Thats a pretty  cool theory, but I thought they confirmed it was an asteroid a 100%. 

[Stiff]

I'd love this to be true, but somehow, I think the other (well, pretty much any) explanations are more plausible. 

[zep73]

Pure pointless speculation. Will it return? Probably not. If it comes back, do we have the means to investigate it? Probably not.

[stevewinn]

 

 

[Grandpa Greenman]

Could be, but could be I win the lottery tonight, too. Odds are it is just a space rock.  If it would have braked and went into orbit then I would say aliens. 

[Jon the frog]

Dropping a long life beacon on Oumuamua and letting it soar far far away would have been interesting to make contact with aliens.

[Black Monk]

1 hour ago, seanjo said:

It may be a comet...but as a probe, it failed miserably.

Using that logic, so has Voyager.

[cyclopes500]

That can be a very bad idea jon the frog. We don't know what its done in the past. It might have a very bad galactic criminal record.

[+Hammerclaw]

Great Science fiction--but Arthur C. Clarke beat'em to it.

[zep73]

1 hour ago, seanjo said:

Unless it is an actual powered Alien artifact (which it isn't) it ain't coming back.

Unless it has been trapped by our sun, like Comet Halley and Pluto

[stereologist]

The tracking showed it was on a hyperbolic trajectory unlike the planets or comet Halley which are on elliptical trajectories.

[Black Monk]

It's travelling too fast - 196,000 mph - for it to be captured in orbit.

However, it'll take another 20,000 years for it to leave the Solar System.

[Black Monk]

2 hours ago, Grandpa Greenman said:

Could be, but could be I win the lottery tonight, too. Odds are it is just a space rock.  If it would have braked and went into orbit then I would say aliens. 

Voyager won't brake when it reaches another star system 40,000 years from now.

[toast]

Quote

Which one is ‘Oumuamua’s home star?

The 1st object known to be from another solar system passed through our solar system a year ago. Where did it come from? Astronomers have identified 4 plausible candidates.

Full Article

 

[Vorg]

It exhibited a 25,000 mph speed increase. That is something to think about. What I don't know, so you can see why even Harvard is thinking it could be an alien probe.

[L.A.T.1961]

It is an interesting enigma, there are various unusual characteristics about its shape and behaviour. Individually they do not point to anything other than a natural object. It's only when these individual points are added together that the chances of a random event become more difficult to explain.

No known asteroid or comet from our solar system varies so widely in brightness 10/1, with such a large ratio between length and width. The most elongated objects we have seen to date are no more than three times longer than they are wide. It's path was near ideal if a fly-by of the inner planets was the idea and it's outward leg is not following a purely gravitational trajectory. 

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-oumuamua-extraterrestrial-solar.html

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oumuamua_trajectory_animation.gif 

https://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1813f/ 

[+Hammerclaw]

4 minutes ago, South Alabam said:

It exhibited a 25,000 mph speed increase. That is something to think about. What I don't know, so you can see why even Harvard is thinking it could be an alien probe.

As did Rama in Clarke's book. It could be explained by frozen matter volatilizing on and with the object on it's close approach to the sun.

[L.A.T.1961]

3 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

As did Rama in Clarke's book. It could be explained by frozen matter volatilizing on and with the object on it's close approach to the sun.

It would explain an increase in speed but there was no out-gassing seen when it was imaged and out-gassing would be expected to affect it's spin rate which has not happened. 

 

[stereologist]

44 minutes ago, Black Monk said:

It's travelling too fast - 196,000 mph - for it to be captured in orbit.

However, it'll take another 20,000 years for it to leave the Solar System.

Voyagers have left the solar system. They are moving much slower.

[Hawken]

44 minutes ago, Black Monk said:

It's travelling too fast - 196,000 mph - for it to be captured in orbit.

However, it'll take another 20,000 years for it to leave the Solar System.

Voyager 1 is traveling  over 38,000 mph and took about 40 years to leave our solar system.

https://www.quora.com/How-fast-is-Voyager-1-going

[AllPossible]

47 minutes ago, Black Monk said:

It's travelling too fast - 196,000 mph - for it to be captured in orbit.

However, it'll take another 20,000 years for it to leave the Solar System.

wow why that long?

[stereologist]

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/mysterious-oumuamua-space-object-has-finally-been-identified-ncna887821

Quote

Comets — icy, dusty objects that have been likened to "dirty snowballs" — typically form long tails when they come close to the sun. No such tail was visible in earlier observations of Oumuamua (which means "scout" in Hawaiian), a fact that helped lead other astronomers to conclude that it was an asteroid.

Quote

His team concluded that the unexpected motion of Oumuamua had to be caused by the spewing out of small quantities of gaseous materials from its surface. This "outgassing" — commonly seen in comets — was too small to be visible but significant enough to affect Oumuamua's trajectory.

But not everyone is buying that explanation — at least not completely.

 

[toast]

1 hour ago, Black Monk said:

It's travelling too fast - 196,000 mph - for it to be captured in orbit.

However, it'll take another 20,000 years for it to leave the Solar System.

196kmph was its speed in September 2017, approaching the Sun, its current speed is at 70kmph and it will leave our solar system in 4 years.

Quote

′Oumuamua, less than half a mile in length, now is farther away from our Sun than Jupiter and traveling away from the Sun at about 70,000 mph as it heads toward the outskirts of the solar system. In only another four years, it will pass Neptune’s orbit on its way back into interstellar space.

link

 

Edited November 3, 2018 by toast

[zep73]

4 minutes ago, seanjo said:

It's traveling at over 100 thousand MPH, it is too fast to be captured.

Hmmm... Halley's Comet was measured to 157,838 mph in 1910.