Interstellar Object Being Probed for Life

[calamity]

Newton's first law. An object that is at rest, stays at rest, and an object that is moving (at constant speed) stays at constant speed --unless a force is imparted on it. The only reason objects on the Earth stop after a short distance is because gravity pulls them to the Earth and they hit the Earth --and then friction or collisions change the motion. But if you look at people on space stations far away from Earth's gravity --if they throw a wrench, that wrench just keeps on floating until it hits a wall. In space, there are no walls so objects (e.g. a comet) just keep on floating. Even for huge distances, whether that's between solar systems or even galaxies.

Yeah, I get that. But, up until the post above by Ooz, I had no idea that escape velocity from a solar system was so low. I would have guessed that objects flying out of star systems was rare. It looks like I was wrong about that.

 

[blarg]

The resemblance is uncanny... definitely a Fleet Command Battleship, gotta be. Case closed!

has any one tried singing j pop at it?

 

[jmotivator]

Here is your answer...

It's as if the artist who rendered the image of 'Oumaumau watched Super Dimension Fortress Macross, or something!

 

[eohrnberger]

Correct, sorry, the escape velocity of the solar system is not a constant number, and increases as you get closer to the sun. The 620 kps I quoted is the escape velocity from the surface of the sun, whoops.

On that note, at a distance of 1 AU the solar escape velocity is 42 kps, but any craft leaving earth's orbit starts with Earth's inherent orbital speed of 30 kps. Voyager's 17 kps is recessional speed, which is relative to the speed of the Earth, but an aggregated speed of 47 kps.

Anyway, it turns out that yes, it is interstellar. At 1 AU the object was clocked traveling at 49.67 kps, just a bit faster than Voyager, and about 7 kps faster than solar escape velocity at that orbital distance.

An interesting animation from NASA.

A few large ground-based telescopes continued to track the fading asteroid as it receded from our planet. Two of NASA's space telescopes (Hubble and Spitzer) tracked the object traveling about 85,700 miles per hour (38.3 kilometers per second) relative to the Sun. Its outbound path is about 20 degrees above the plane of planets that orbit the Sun. The object passed Mars's orbit around Nov. 1 and will pass Jupiter's orbit in May of 2018. It will travel beyond Saturn's orbit in January 2019; as it leaves our solar system, 'Oumuamua will head for the constellation Pegasus.

Preliminary orbital calculations suggest that the object came from the approximate direction of the bright star Vega, in the northern constellation of Lyra. However, it took so long for the interstellar object to make the journey - even at the speed of about 59,000 miles per hour (26.4 kilometers per second) -- that Vega was not near that position when the asteroid was there about 300,000 years ago.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/oumuamua/indepth

From the animation it looks like the sun's gravity altered it's course by some 90 degrees or so.
I would have never thought it would be that much, traveling at "at a blistering speed of 196,000 miles per hour (87.3 kilometers per second)" :shock:

A good thing that it didn't hit anything on its way through. If it hit a planet, debris would have been sent all over, and possibly cause a meteor shower, and, if some of those were big enough, problems if colliding with the Earth.

I wonder why it's cigar shaped rather than a sphere? Makes me think that this is a fragment of a planet which was in an orbit too close to a sun that went super nova and shattered the planet, ejecting this fragment from that solar system into interstellar space.

 

[jmotivator]

An interesting animation from NASA.


From the animation it looks like the sun's gravity altered it's course by some 90 degrees or so.
I would have never thought it would be that much, traveling at "at a blistering speed of 196,000 miles per hour (87.3 kilometers per second)" :shock:

A good thing that it didn't hit anything on its way through. If it hit a planet, debris would have been sent all over, and possibly cause a meteor shower, and, if some of those were big enough, problems if colliding with the Earth.

I wonder why it's cigar shaped rather than a sphere? Makes me think that this is a fragment of a planet which was in an orbit too close to a sun that went super nova and shattered the planet, ejecting this fragment from that solar system into interstellar space.

Cool video.

I don't think the shape is all that odd, really. Pluto is almost two small for gravity to make it spherical. My guess is it is a shard from a fairly sizable rock thrown off by a collision. The more interesting thing is considering how and where that collision would have taken place.

 

[eohrnberger]

Cool video.

I don't think the shape is all that odd, really. Pluto is almost two small for gravity to make it spherical. My guess is it is a shard from a fairly sizable rock thrown off by a collision. The more interesting thing is considering how and where that collision would have taken place.

Most certainly an interesting thing.

Preliminary orbital calculations suggest that the object came from the approximate direction of the bright star Vega, in the northern constellation of Lyra. However, it took so long for the interstellar object to make the journey - even at the speed of about 59,000 miles per hour (26.4 kilometers per second) -- that Vega was not near that position when the asteroid was there about 300,000 years ago.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/oumuamua/indepth

Hmm. So not Vega, then. Guess the astronomers and orbital mechanics guys need to do further analysis.

 

[Helix]

Well, how did it achieve enough velocity to escape the gravity in it's original solar system? Remnants of a system whose star went super nova, perhaps.

it's possible that two massive objects (possibly planets) collided and this object is a fragment from that collision.

 

[calamity]

it's possible that two massive objects (possibly planets) collided and this object is a fragment from that collision.

They say the earth's moon is the result of such a collision. Point being, I think, that gravity is probably too strong in those regions for fragments to be hurled off into outer space. However, a star blowing up would certainly create such high energy rocks. But, I'm out of my league on this. So, my speculations are not worth much.

 

[Fraggle Rock]

They say it's cigar shaped....could it be that an alien President threw out the evidence of a inter-galactic affair with an intern. :lamo

 

[Helix]

They say the earth's moon is the result of such a collision. Point being, I think, that gravity is probably too strong in those regions for fragments to be hurled off into outer space. However, a star blowing up would certainly create such high energy rocks. But, I'm out of my league on this. So, my speculations are not worth much.

i've read this theory of the moon's origin, as well. i am also not qualified to speculate definitively whether or not this is a piece of a planet. i have just seen this theory in a couple of articles.

The Interstellar Object 'Oumuamua Might Be The Remains Of A Planet That Was Destroyed | IFLScience

 

[Jack Hays]

They say the earth's moon is the result of such a collision. Point being, I think, that gravity is probably too strong in those regions for fragments to be hurled off into outer space. However, a star blowing up would certainly create such high energy rocks. But, I'm out of my league on this. So, my speculations are not worth much.

i've read this theory of the moon's origin, as well. i am also not qualified to speculate definitively whether or not this is a piece of a planet. i have just seen this theory in a couple of articles.

The Interstellar Object 'Oumuamua Might Be The Remains Of A Planet That Was Destroyed | IFLScience

Alderaan!

 

[Helix]

Alderaan!

it pissed me off when the assholes destroyed that planet.

 

[Jack Hays]

it pissed me off when the assholes destroyed that planet.

"You're far too trusting, my dear."

 

[Abbazorkzog]

Has a link already been posted to them finding it coated in organic material?

EDIT: Panspermia: Mysterious Asteroid Oumuamua Could Be a Galactic Bus Carrying Life Between Solar Systems

 

[RAMOSS]

Perhaps. But the universe is full of matter that is not trapped in solar gravity wells. This object, as it turns out, is now trapped in ours. The object is traveling 196k mph, while the escape velocity of the Sun is about 1.4m mph.

I think the more important test of whether it is an alien spacecraft is to watch it and see if it leaves our solar system.

An alien race that travels all the way to our solar system just to enter an orbit where most of their time is spent way out towards the Kuiper belt (to the tune of thousands of years) would be pretty boring..

It actually IS going to be leaving our solar system

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ʻOumuamua

Oumuamua is a small object, estimated to be about 230 by 35 meters (800 ft × 100 ft) in size. It has a dark red color, similar to objects in the outer Solar System. ʻOumuamua showed no signs of a comet tail despite its close approach to the Sun, and has significant elongation and rotation rate, so it is thought to be a metal-rich rock with a relatively high density. ʻOumuamua is tumbling rather than smoothly rotating, and it is moving so fast relative to the Sun that there is no chance it originated in the Solar System. It also means that ʻOumuamua cannot be captured into a solar orbit, so it will eventually leave the Solar System and resume traveling in interstellar space. ʻOumuamua's system of origin and the amount of time it has been traveling among the stars are unknown.

 

[Jack Hays]

Klaatu barada nikto.

 

[blarg]

Klaatu barada nikto.

i get it

 

[Exquisitor]

It actually IS going to be leaving our solar system

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ʻOumuamua

What, did you think it would want to stay here?

i get it

I don't, please illumine me.

I did get four new science fiction novels, though, but not for Christmas. I'm waiting for them in the mail.

 

[Jack Hays]

What, did you think it would want to stay here?



I don't, please illumine me.

I did get four new science fiction novels, though, but not for Christmas. I'm waiting for them in the mail.

1951 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still. It's the alien's line.

 

[blarg]

1951 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still. It's the alien's line.

oops i did not get it

i was thinking

 

[Abbazorkzog]

oops i did not get it

i was thinking

Probably a nod to TDTESS as well. AoD was heavily inspired by vintage films.

 

[Evilroddy]

Well, how did it achieve enough velocity to escape the gravity in it's original solar system? Remnants of a system whose star went super nova, perhaps.

Calamity:

It may have not come from another solar system at all. It might have been slung out of this solar system into interstellar space and having briefly returned to us is sling-shooting around the sun and is heading back out. Interstellar does not necessarily mean a non-Sol solar system origin.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

 

[blarg]

Calamity:

It may have not come from another solar system at all. It might have been slung out of this solar system into interstellar space and having briefly returned to us is sling-shooting around the sun and is heading back out. Interstellar does not necessarily mean a non-Sol solar system origin.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

so it may have escaped the suns gravity only to be redirected back to this start system by the gravity of something in another?

 

[calamity]

so it may have escaped the suns gravity only to be redirected back to this start system by the gravity of something in another?

I think he's saying that its orbit may be such that it travels further away from the sun than what we would normally expect. I haven't read enough about this thing to know if the math works out though. My understanding is that it is not trapped in orbit around the sun. But, I don't know that.

 

[Evilroddy]

so it may have escaped the suns gravity only to be redirected back to this start system by the gravity of something in another?

Blarg:

1) Being located in interstellar space does not necessarily mean that an object has fully escaped a star's or star-system's gravitational pull.

2) Objects can encounter gravitational fields from masses other than stars in interstellar space which can alter their course and send them back to a solar system from which they emerged.

3) if our solar system is not a uni-stellar system and if a very dim companion star (say a black or brown dwarf which we are unaware of) is out there this cigar-shaped object could have originated from that region but still be a part of our shared binary solar system.

4) The object could also be truely interstellar in origin, we just don't know enough about it and its history at this point so the jury is still out.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.