Oumuamua - The Next Great Project

[Asbo Zaprudder]

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.07871.pdf

Oumuamua is likely not artificial in origin. I concur with the analysis in the preprint, which tangentially performs a critically sceptical analysis of the ambitions of Breakthrough. However, it seems we'll need to develop fast probes to take a detailed look as optical telescopes are limited by diffraction effects when trying to resolve small objects at typical interplanetary distance. Of interest is the density of such objects given that Panstarrs appears to detect approximately one per year in the solar system. That's worth some analysis.

 

[Dryson]

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.07871.pdf

I just read the article.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mystery-of-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-gets-trickier/

In 2018, our solar system ran into an object lost in interstellar space. The object, dubbed 'Oumuamua, seemed to be long and thin—cigar-shaped—and tumbling end over end. Then, close observations showed it was accelerating, as if something were pushing on it. Scientists still aren't sure why.

Based on the rate of tumble, velocity, acceleration, mass and dimensions of Oum, we should be able to get a fairly good picture of when Oum started to tumble and what amount of force would have been needed to make it tumble.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0398-z

It's basically the same as doing a somersault. First you have Oum at rest in a planetary orbit with no tumble. Then something struck Oum and sent it into a tumble. For conversation sake lets assume several things:

1. Oum could have been struck from the top near the one of the ends. Its tumble rate would depend on where it struck.

• if struck near the middle, a slight tumble might occur as the energy of the impact would been absorbed by the comets center of gravity causing hardly any tumble at all or could have created a slight teter-tottering tumble.
  
• the further away from the center of gravity, the impact would cause Oum to tumble in that direction. If more impact energy struck left of center, Oum would have tumbled counter-clockwise. If struck right of center, Oum have tumbled clockwise.
• With Oum being struck from the top and based on its trajectory, the originating point would have been far above the Earth when referencing Oum's trajectory. Whatever struck Oum would therefore had to have come from the top of Oum and struck downwards on the right end of Oum that would sent the asteroid into downwards and clockwise tumble towards Earth.

It is doubt full that whatever struck the asteroid from the underside, otherwise the asteroid would have tumbled more upwards, meaning the place of origin would have been below the Earth. But since we know that Oum came into the solar system on a trajectory above the Earth, we know where ever it came from, the solar system is above the Earth.

https://newatlas.com/oumuamua-interstellar-object-comet/55252/

There should be a solar system, above the Earth that has a planet, most likely a gas giant that has an asteroid belt orbiting it. The size of object that struck Oum and sent it into a tumble would be based on the rate of tumble of Oum, small enough to not destroy Oum upon impact, but large enough to knock it out of its orbit and send it tumbling towards Earth.

If Oum did come from solar system with a gas giant that has asteroid belt orbiting the gas giant, then the solar system would have activity inside of it, such as comets passing through that might have collided with Oum.

If the solar system does have interior activity, then perhaps it might have its own Oort Cloud which increases the chances of the originating solar system being similar to our solar system.

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream...

 

[publiusr]

This is why NASA should at least one very large solid rocket with a small spacecraft sitting in a silo, ICBM style—so if something like this pops up, you can launch on a moment’s notice...
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2021/02/23/extraterrestrial-on-oumuamua-as-artifact/

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

This is why NASA should at least one very large solid rocket with a small spacecraft sitting in a silo, ICBM style—so if something like this pops up, you can launch on a moment’s notice

Ok, are you also going to hold a large team ready on standby at JPL and make tracking stations ready to handle such a mission or are you just going to tell an existing team and tracking stations to stop whatever they are doing and handle this mission instead? Some existing project or projects would have to fall by the wayside.

 

[Dryson]

This is why NASA should at least one very large solid rocket with a small spacecraft sitting in a silo, ICBM style—so if something like this pops up, you can launch on a moment’s notice

Precisely, when a chance like this comes again, which it might if the object that struck Oumuamua was large enough to dislodge other chunks that might be on their way to Earth at this very moment. Maybe a group of rogue comets crack the area Oumuamua was located in.

But if that were true that a comet or swarm of comets had struck Oumuamua then there should have been telltale signs of such an impact, just like there should have been signs of a very large object colliding with Oumuamua. If Oumuamua had its own gravitational field, shouldn't some of the debris caused by the collision have stayed with Oum all the way into our Solar system?

Where was Oumuamua heading after it passed the Sun? Did anyone bother to track that trajector? Maybe SETI could beam some signals in that direction and see what happens.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Oumuamua's outbound trajectory is being tracked. That's why we know it has apparently been subject to non-gravitationally based acceleration - possibly due to outgassing although there is no evidence for this as far as I'm aware.

 

[publiusr]

Naturally--I would like more spent on NASA. With stimulus bills in the trillions--same with infrastructure bills and the Green New Deal (SPSS please)--an increase in NASA budgets gets seen as a rounding error, where the dedicated one percent for space call failed. You have to slip things in and have Biden sign it without notice.


New info
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2021/03/19/oumuamua-a-shard-of-nitrogen-ice/

 

[Dryson]

Oumuamua's outbound trajectory is being tracked. That's why we know it has apparently been subject to non-gravitationally based acceleration - possibly due to outgassing although there is no evidence for this as far as I'm aware.

If there is no outgassing that has been detected, which there would be an immense amount of out gassing present to accelerate Oumuamua away from the Sun, then the only logical explanation has to be a new element that interacts with the gravitational fields of certain types of sun, our being one type that caused the acceleration to occur.

Why might Oumuamua be elongated?

In young groups of asteroids there are a great variety of shapes, hinting that they formed relatively recently from fragments of rock that later bound together. Asteroids in older families tend to be rounder. It seems to take one billion to two billion years for irregular asteroids to be transformed into smooth balls.

Oumuamua is elongated which means that it could have come from a young group of asteroids that are in the early stage of forming into somewhat smooth balls like we are familiar with seeing. Where ever Oumuamua came from, the asteroid ring that it was part of is probably very young, maybe half the age of Jupiter's or Saturn's rings, thus making the system that Oumuamua came from, around 1.5 to 2.5 billion years old.

Another theory could be that Oumuamua was part of a planet that was fractured and obliterated by a swarm of rogue comets or even the real possibility of a planet in Oumuamua's system crossing the orbital of Oumuamua and obliterated it. If Oum is between 1.5 to 2.5 billion years old then the planet that it came from could have been at the end stage of cooling, which would allow for Oumuamua to be sent tumbling towards Earth pretty much in the shape that it was seen.

I took some photos of rocks on the side of hill today because they reminded me of Oumuamua.

In this image, I outlined the rock that is similar to Oumuamua's shape.

Oumuamua could have gotten its shape based the layer of rock above it cracking into smaller pieces. If true, then the planet where Oumuamua came from could have had plate tectonic activity. Tectonic movements that could have caused the shifting of the layers of the planet, which would have caused stress on the rocks, thus causing them to fracture.

Another image showing numerous Oumuamua shaped rocks that have cracked due to tectonic movement and the weather. So what we might know is that Oumuamua came from a planet that could be between 1.5 to 2.5 billion years old and could have come from a fractured planet.

Below are two images of how rock layers on Earth form.

This is an image from ESO, European Space Organization, of what Oumuamua most likely looked like.

The top side is relatively smooth and tapers downward while the underside is more bulky and tapers upwards, suggesting that Oumuamua was wedged in between two larger rocks, one pushing downwards and one pushing upwards, possibly due to plate tectonics.

My best guess is that Oumuamua came from the Chinle layer based on its relatively flat side and the bulky underside.

 

[Dryson]

Naturally--I would like more spent on NASA. With stimulus bills in the trillions--same with infrastructure bills and the Green New Deal (SPSS please)--an increase in NASA budgets gets seen as a rounding error, where the dedicated one percent for space call failed. You have to slip things in and have Biden sign it without notice.

Getting to your comment, I totally agree. Most astrophysics believe or theorize that all elements will be the same across the Universe as they are here on Earth. But what they forget to understand is that at the moment of the Big Bang new particles were created that accelerated faster than the speed of light before slowing to under light speed.
The early particles would have formed ultra rare elements during the period of FTL expansion and Slower than light speed expansion.

The early stars that formed right after the Big Bang might have added a varied degree of uniqueness to some particles that later became elements that formed into planets. Unique traits that might allow objects to be accelerated by the Sun like we seen with Oumuamua.

Out of the 118 elements that have been found, I would have to believe that at least 500 if not more, exist in asteroids and comets that pass Earth or on planets orbiting stars that are very old. Some of these ultra rare elements could even be found nestled inside of nebula.

This is the main reason why we need a program that can launch a probe to an asteroid, such as Oumuamua. A separate facility where the rocket is kept under ground near the launch site and then raised into the tower and then launched. Hopefully another Oumuamua is heading our way that within twenty years a response vehicle can be launched to investigate the object.

 

[rahullak]

Bizarre interstellar object Oumuamua may be exploded chunk of Pluto-like planet

A new theory, which appears in two papers published Tuesday in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, posits that the strange object could be an ejected piece of a Pluto-like planet that was blasted out of its home solar system around 400 million years ago.

"This research is exciting in that we've probably resolved the mystery of what Oumuamua is," said Steven Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University and co-author of the new studies. "We can reasonably identify it as a chunk of an 'exo-Pluto,' a Pluto-like planet in another solar system."

[...]

It's a neat explanation, accounting for all Oumuamua's strangeness, and it's an exciting hypothesis because it suggests Oumuamua is the first piece of an exoplanet that's visited our solar system.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Dryson]

The mystery of Oumuamua has been solved.

https://phys-org.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-extra-solar-oumuamua.amp?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA=#aoh=16160092509586&csi=0&referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s&ampshare=https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-extra-solar-oumuamua.html

Two Arizona State University astrophysicists, Steven Desch and Alan Jackson of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, set out to explain the odd features of 'Oumuamua and have determined that it is likely a piece of a Pluto-like planet from another solar system. Their findings have been recently published in a pair of papers in the AGU Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Solved is a bit strong. Proposed an explanation that best agrees with the currently available evidence might be nearer the mark. I'm biased toward it because I'm not really a fan of the "it must be aliens" explanation for any observed astronomical phenomenon. I can't say it's never going to be aliens but I'd suggest looking damned hard for a more prosaic explanation first.

 

[XCV330]

The first ex-Solar visitor we see being a piece of exploded planet at does not seem to be what random odds would have given us, either. Oh well, at least it didn't rain kryptonite down on us. But this does a better job of explaining the possible acceleration without signs of out-gassing.

Truthfully, I don't think we'll ever know what it was.