Astronomers to Check Mysterious Interstellar Object for Signs of Technology - Sensationalist Headlines

An alien hard drive full of alien memes please.

[QUOTE=kharkovus;52979345]No no no guys, [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eon_(novel)#The_Stone"]it's Juno, coming back from the future![/URL][/QUOTE] Thanks for linking this because a comment someone made the other day regarding Rama brought this story to mind but I couldn't remember anything about the title or author to try hunting it down.

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;52968462]If I remember what I read correctly The article I read basically describes that it would be the single most important event in all human history Everything from then on in our history would be be categorised as pre, and post contact. On a smaller level, riots, panicking, public losing their shit even war being a possible outcome because it's [B]that[/B] pants shittingly important. :v:[/QUOTE] Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. In the wake of a first-contact event, the world would not be [B]small[/B], it would be [B]infinitesimal.[/B] Our planet would take on such a startling amount of relevance [I]and[/I] irrelevance at the same time that almost everything would be thrown off kilter. Our responsibility within the galaxy would increase tenfold, and it would make or break the future of our species as one unified whole. Either we'd tear each other apart attempting to be the top of the pile, or we'd unify under one common good for the sakes of exploring the now-expansive universe before us. Most speculative fiction goes with the latter, because it's easier to swallow. I firmly believe a lot of the reasons we don't have greater space programs across the globe right now is because nobody wants to admit they just spent ninety billion on exploring nothingness. If we found out there [B]was[/B] somebody beyond the wall, you'd see everyone shit bricks and start gunning for the stars.

[QUOTE=Dwarden;52976984]or maybe it's ark from somewhere else , who knows maybe it's full of dead and relics[/QUOTE] [IMG]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/halo/images/3/30/City.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100216064957[/IMG] well it did sort of lead to the flood coming too so does it count

[QUOTE=Alice3173;52984016]Thanks for linking this because a comment someone made the other day regarding Rama brought this story to mind but I couldn't remember anything about the title or author to try hunting it down.[/QUOTE] Yeah it was hard for me to remember also -- luckily had it in my bookshelf. Pretty neat story, imo.

Maybe its a Great Old One dildo.

[url]https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/dec/14/is-oumuamua-an-alien-spacecraft-first-scans-show-no-signs-of-technology[/url] [editline]17th December 2017[/editline] Update

Another update https://phys.org/news/2018-11-oumuamua-extraterrestrial-solar.html Oumuamua possibly experiences outgassing after passing the sun and accelerates. Harvard astronomers speculate that this space dildo is actually an alien light sail

That's interesting. This could mean that future examination of space rocks could very well depend on our knowledge of their composition, whether they contain substances that can alter their own orbits/velocities.

Please, if it actually is aliens, let it be nice ones that will help us fix our planet and be all that our species could be. For the love of god, don't let it be Ethereals. (Yeah, I just started playing X-COM 2)

They went right past us. We're fly-by space.

If there is an intergalatic community there's probably some rule that they're not allowed to contact species that haven't developed interstellar travel. It'd make sense in a way as it'd stop advanced races giving fucking idiots the opportunity to expand into space.

should have nuked it when we had the chance

We can only learn by letting it learn

And then the ship is undamaged. And then the send one of their alien nukes back at us - except their nukes are literal planet killers. Great job, you just killed us all.

TAKE ME WITH YOU

I would not be surprised if on some interstellar star chart there is a big red circle drawn around earth in the holographic equivalent of a big bold marker pen and the words "DON'T" are written next to it in large capitals. When consulting the further details section on earth you get the following. Mostly Harmless Primitive Violent Irrational Self Destructive

So, uh, if this object is so interesting, why dont we launch a probe to study it or something By the way, how long until it leaves the solar system?

Because math

If it's an object from outside of solar system, you basically need enough energy to escape solar system to have a [i]chance[/i] of catching up. We don't have a way to catch up with it in time (don't have nuclear engines to go for a direct acceleration, would take too long to use solar system planets for a required boost)

Damn, thats sad. It really reminds me of that Lem short story now, with people saying it might be a dead alien probe and whatnot.

I feel like we wouldn't be able to catch it unless we had a probe (with cameras and sensors and all that other shit) and a rocket on the pad ready to go tomorrow. You'd probably need a heavy rocket like a Falcon Heavy or a Delta IV to get enough speed to make up for lost time and we can't just pull those out of thin air. It would probably be wise to have intercept vehicles ready to go for future opportunities. Or have stuff already in the solar system to get better data from future objects. But all that would require funding

Actually, sending out a drone/suicide mission to see if a species is friendly is your best bet. Hiding can only get you so far until diplomacy can be reached. But this probably some deep space debris which could still be really fucking cool.

Even if it isn't aliens I still wanna know what was on it to make it accelerate the way it did.

https://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/science_papers/heic1813/heic1813a.pdf wtf?

Im guessing solar sails.

Our proposed explanation of outgassing provides the most plausible physical model of the observed non-gravitational acceleration by postulating that ‘Oumuamua behaves like a comet of miniature size. By establishing the object as an icy body (albeit one with possibly unusual dust properties), this scenario resolves the puzzle of the object’s apparent asteroidal nature and reconciles ‘Oumuamua’s properties with predictions that only a small fraction of interstellar objects are asteroidal (rocky-to-icy ratio in the 0.01% to 0.5% range20). The lack of observed dust lifted from the object by the hypothesized cometary activity can be explained by an atypical dust grain size distribution that is devoid of small grains, smaller-than-usual pores in the nucleus, a low dust-to-ice ratio or surface evolution from its long journey. However, these important aspects of ‘Oumuamua’s physical nature cannot be resolved conclusively with the existing observations. In-situ observation would be essential to reveal unambiguously the nature, origin, and physical properties of ‘Oumuamua and other interstellar objects that may be discovered in the future. Sounds about right. Theorizes that it's a comet, rather than an asteroid like it was previously thought. Read the whole paper, it's a very short read - it certainly doesn't strike me as scientists throwing their hands up and saying "fuck dude, might be aliens." More like "oh hey, this object might be a different object than we thought with some minor quirks."

pretty ballsy move to put your career on the line with a claim like that

There was a discussion on I think tumblr (which has been screencapped and shared all over the place) some time back that basically addressed a really interesting and hilarious scifi concept: Humans are considered savage and insane by interstellar spacefaring races' standards. Things like, We live in seismically-active and volcanically-active areas. When the earthquake flattens our homes or we have to evacuate as lava pours over highways and rarely threatens peoples' homes, we come back after the natural disaster is over and rebuild in the same place instead of emigrating somewhere else on the planet that doesn't have so many natural hazards periodically trying to kill us. We voluntarily live in freezing climates and have for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years. We mutilate our flesh with piercings and other body mods and inject permanent ink under our skin for fashion. When we discovered nuclear weapons and detonated the first nuclear bomb, our next move was to use another. And then test hundreds more, scattering radiation throughout the atmosphere. And then build thousands more and threaten to use them on each other over and over for decades, with no idea what to do with them after we made them. We discovered nuclear power and have refined primitive designs into mature, clean, safe nuclear power plants. But we've insisted on building more and more coal and oil power plants despite knowing for decades that we're heating up our atmosphere by burning millions of years' worth of hydrocarbons in less than a century, especially when we had Venus and its runaway greenhouse atmosphere as a warning. We're cluttering our orbit with high-speed debris with no clear plan on how to prevent ourselves from becoming unable to safely launch anything into space. Our cultural output regarding extraterrstrials almost exclusively depict them as aggressive existential threats to humanity as a whole that can only be defeated by human cunning and massive quantities of firepower. As pre-civilization hunter-gatherers, we developed pursuit predation, a terrifying method of stalking the target animal and tracking it by intelligently examining the environment for signs of its passage until it dies of exhaustion after days running away from the human. We don't try and outrun the creature, we can't swoop in from the air to surprise the creature, we're just constantly there, following it and not letting it get any rest until it just collapses and can't run away. We discover vaccines and then refuse to take them in the belief that we're "healthier" for doing so. Not many, but the fact that we'd 180 on life-saving science is a serious logical warning sign. We actively support and encourage sports (such as boxing) that regularly result in fatal injuries and long-term brain damage. We periodically discover or invent new chemical compounds and inject ourselves with them for fun. Humans are fucking crazy bastards.

What if we're actually the most tame people in the universe