Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain Oumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration?(arxiv.org)
arxiv.org
Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain Oumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration?
https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.11490
38 comments
Previous discussion from 4 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18338927 (100 comments)
Before we jump to artificial/alien origins, let's at least consider the basic science before jumping to fantastical conclusions....
I always found it quite interesting to see the parallels between arguments for God and aliens -- X can't be explained by science so I'm going to jump to the conclusion I want to believe. I thought I was immune to this kind of reasoning but even I fell for it with Oumuamua.
The initial paper and comments by some experts convinced me that there is a strong chance that this is a probe. It seemed plausible based on my limited understanding of Physics. (Moment of Inertia, Stresses etc.)
But then a paper[1] was released claiming this to be a comet. I so wanted my original belief to be true(because it was more exciting!) I considered the possibility that their [2]model wasn't accurate. I was even willing to entertain the idea of cover-up just because it didn't align with what I wanted to be true!
[1] https://www.space.com/41015-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-co...
[2]A recent study claims that it was indeed the case and the probe is more likely to not be a comet. https://www.quantamagazine.org/interstellar-comet-oumuamua-m...
Edit: Formatting
The initial paper and comments by some experts convinced me that there is a strong chance that this is a probe. It seemed plausible based on my limited understanding of Physics. (Moment of Inertia, Stresses etc.)
But then a paper[1] was released claiming this to be a comet. I so wanted my original belief to be true(because it was more exciting!) I considered the possibility that their [2]model wasn't accurate. I was even willing to entertain the idea of cover-up just because it didn't align with what I wanted to be true!
[1] https://www.space.com/41015-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-co...
[2]A recent study claims that it was indeed the case and the probe is more likely to not be a comet. https://www.quantamagazine.org/interstellar-comet-oumuamua-m...
Edit: Formatting
> I always found it quite interesting to see the parallels between arguments for God and aliens -- X can't be explained by science so I'm going to jump to the conclusion I want to believe.
In general I think it is because of baggage associated with "God". Which God(s)? Was/is there persecution, torture, killing, suppression of human rights happening or happened using the belief or lack of believe in said God(s) as a pretext.
Aliens are a cute curiosity. That is, it is pretty safe to say we believe in them or hope that they visited us without getting too many people upset. Which is kind of what they did here. "Assuming this body can't outgas, and that the acceleration came from the solar wind, then it might have these other properties, including being an alien solar sail"
In general I think it is because of baggage associated with "God". Which God(s)? Was/is there persecution, torture, killing, suppression of human rights happening or happened using the belief or lack of believe in said God(s) as a pretext.
Aliens are a cute curiosity. That is, it is pretty safe to say we believe in them or hope that they visited us without getting too many people upset. Which is kind of what they did here. "Assuming this body can't outgas, and that the acceleration came from the solar wind, then it might have these other properties, including being an alien solar sail"
Ugh. I just noticed how I bungled it up with my phrasing. I meant "argument for manifestations of god/aliens/" and not "argument for god/aliens" And I totally agree with you.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
I'm sure "they" have used science to accelerate their ship/engine. I love when things like this happen and show just how much we still don't know, even about things we consider "basic".
This paper is the basic science.
It is not. The last sentence is utter speculation. I would look into the measurement errors, interference, multiple data points collected by independent monitoring systems, and check for errors against an unbiased/known body of similar mass etcetc. None of this has been done.
It's similar to "my camera spotted this amazing illusory effect and I think it's an artificial body"...
It's similar to "my camera spotted this amazing illusory effect and I think it's an artificial body"...
When you look at the trajectory that this object took through the solar system, coming within .14 AU of earth, you really have to wonder; what are the chances that it was a random flyby?
You have to consider instead the probability of detecting such objects that don't come very close to Earth. And that probability is actually pretty low (currently), so the proximity tells us very little beyond some general estimate of how common such objects are.
And in a similar vein, we have only very recently become able to detect (some) objects such as this one, and shortly after we gained the ability to spot things like this, we spotted this one. It at least allows the possibility that events like this are not incredibly rare, and we just haven't been able to perceive them until now.
Plus, it's not as if 0.14 AU (it was actually further than that according to Wikipedia)) is all that close, it was still well over 20 million km away or over 50 lunar orbital radii.
It just sounds small when you write it as 0.14 because it's a small fraction of an AU, but an AU is freaking huge. If we sent a probe to Jupiter and it only got within 0.14 AU I can't see that being considered much of a success.
It just sounds small when you write it as 0.14 because it's a small fraction of an AU, but an AU is freaking huge. If we sent a probe to Jupiter and it only got within 0.14 AU I can't see that being considered much of a success.
Well, I think there could be lots of rocks but they are hard to see.
>what are the chances that it was a random flyby?
~99.9̅% chance of being random. Absent any sort of evidence, it was a rare, meaningless event. The law of large numbers, however, suggests that rare events occur more frequently than you'd expect. E.g 1 in 1000 year floods could occur 3 times in a decade, since each event is statistically independent from others.
~99.9̅% chance of being random. Absent any sort of evidence, it was a rare, meaningless event. The law of large numbers, however, suggests that rare events occur more frequently than you'd expect. E.g 1 in 1000 year floods could occur 3 times in a decade, since each event is statistically independent from others.
> ~99.9̅% chance of being random.
Where did you get that number from? Because it looks like you made it up.
Where did you get that number from? Because it looks like you made it up.
The odds of any one ticket being the wining lottery ticket is very low. However, with huge jackpots the odds that someone will win are very high.
In other words the odds that that specific rock get’s that close is low. But, if we only observe rocks close to us then the odds that we will see a rock close to us depends more on the number of rocks than the low odds for anyone rock.
More generally becase we notice unusual events more than common ones you need to consider all possible unusual events you would notice not just the odds of that specific event.
In other words the odds that that specific rock get’s that close is low. But, if we only observe rocks close to us then the odds that we will see a rock close to us depends more on the number of rocks than the low odds for anyone rock.
More generally becase we notice unusual events more than common ones you need to consider all possible unusual events you would notice not just the odds of that specific event.
99.9̅% == 100%
Good catch. I didn't even notice this while reading the grandparent comment. But I've seen people debate this fact, or rather the fact that 0.9̅=1, for days and weeks on the internet.
Wow, you just pushed me and my girlfriend into a heated debate regarding this. Is there a list anywhere of similar unintuitive math properties/facts?
Hmm... I guess division by zero is sort of similar. And imaginary numbers? The wiki article has some good discussion on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999...
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The HN title needs to be corrected. The correct name is ʻOumuamua, including the first punctuation character (an ʻokina, representing a glottal stop).
> We discuss the possible origins of such an object including the possibility that it might be a lightsail of artificial origin. Our general results apply to any light probes designed for interstellar travel.
Could someone clarify whether it means what I think it is saying - that an Arxiv paper is trying to prove that this is an object sent by an alien civilization to peek at our solar system?
Could someone clarify whether it means what I think it is saying - that an Arxiv paper is trying to prove that this is an object sent by an alien civilization to peek at our solar system?
Yes, it means what you think it means, though "discussing the possibility" does not mean "trying to prove".
Weirder Arxiv papers exist, it's not that odd.
Weirder Arxiv papers exist, it's not that odd.
No, you read it wrong. They are not trying to prove anything, they are discussing the possible origins of the object.
Anyone can publish to Arxiv; one doesn't need to be credible to publish there. I am not saying these authors are untrustworthy, by the way, or that the object in question is or is not of alien & artificial origin; I am saying that anyone can publish a paper to Arxiv.
nope. from personal experience trying, you need two endorsements.
They are attached to an institution however.
David Brin is sticking to the solar radiation causing outgassing after a delay hypothesis. Go figure - it was his thesis
Seems at least plausible.
Comet Rosetta's perihelion was August 13, 2015 [1] and there was a big outgassing event February 2016 [2]. Takes time for heat to propagate through stuff.
But yeah, I'd rather it was due to radiation pressure on an alien solar sail.
[1] https://www.space.com/30237-rosetta-spacecraft-comet-closest...
[2] http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/08/25/rosetta-captures-com...
Comet Rosetta's perihelion was August 13, 2015 [1] and there was a big outgassing event February 2016 [2]. Takes time for heat to propagate through stuff.
But yeah, I'd rather it was due to radiation pressure on an alien solar sail.
[1] https://www.space.com/30237-rosetta-spacecraft-comet-closest...
[2] http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/08/25/rosetta-captures-com...
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I hope it's an alien probe sent by a mother ship. They should come and just destroy us before we slowly destroy ourselves!
Speak for yourself, there's still plenty of things I want to do on this planet.
> They should come and just destroy us before we slowly destroy ourselves!
Your misanthropy doesn’t even make sense. We should be destroyed because we are going to destroy ourselves? As in, we’re going to fall off a cliff, so why not just push us off pre-emptively?
Your misanthropy doesn’t even make sense. We should be destroyed because we are going to destroy ourselves? As in, we’re going to fall off a cliff, so why not just push us off pre-emptively?