Interstellar Object Travelling Through Solar System: 1I/2017 U1 "Oumuamua"

How is there no thread on how fucking cool this is?

Nature: A brief visit from a red and extremely elongated interstellar asteroid

LA Times: Meet 'Oumuamua, the interstellar asteroid, before it's gone for good

 

I just read about it this morning and yes, this is fucking cool!

 

Reminds me of Rama. Pity we can't get a good image of it. Although I very much doubt it is anything except natural in origin, it would be interesting to know how it retains its integrity given its shape and spin rate.

 

This is... wow.

Is there an explanation for the oblong shape?

 

An anomalous object made of metal, cylindrical in shape, speeding through the Solar System from interstellar space, changing course via a slingshot around the Sun? If ever there was anything we detected that might be an alien spaceship, it's this. Although I guess the fact that it's spinning and covered in organic compounds kind of argues against that. Unless it's spinning for artificial gravity...? And the reddish hue is paint...?

Okay, probably not, but I'm a science fiction writer, so I can't help but imagine the possibilities. Although of course Arthur C. Clarke beat me to it by decades.

 

Phew! Thank god we still have whales around.

 

It is the big brother of the Black Knight Satellite!

Seriously, very awesome! I do hope we can get a good look at it before it disappears.

 

It's just what's left of a smaller one of these:



You know, after the Empire got done with it...

 

Small Culture GSV

 

Size Isn't Everything, Youthful Indiscretion, or No More Mr Nice Guy perhaps.

 

not yet - it is highly unusual

 

The theories so far invoke debris ejected from the core of two colliding planets or core ejecta from a planet destroyed by a supernova explosion. Seems it can't be a rubble pile because of the spin rate so it probably has a partly metallic composition to give it some structural integrity.

ETA: The object has come from the approximate direction of Lyra, which is the direction in which the solar system is moving. There are several supernova remnants in that approximate direction, not to mention Tabby's Star, although I'm not going to make anything out of that - we're bound to see a larger incidence of extra-system objects in the direction of motion.

 

hopefully we'll get enough heads-up with a future interstellar object for a closer examination, even though that's the tricky part given how dark they are

 

I also read that scientists think our system may get visited approximately once per year by one of these extra-solar objects. It's amazing to think.... Wasn't too long ago and we had only ever seen stars, nebula, quasars out there and now we are seeing planetary systems everywhere. Love it.

 

I would have named it Nibiru.

 

I half expect a former poster to turn up and claim he deflected the object with a laser ripped from a Blu-ray player and a magic amplifying lens - well that, or magnets - how do they work?

 

OMG haha.......

In the first picture that came with the article which was an artist impression of the object it did look kind of like the Millennium Falcon after a bit of a prang.

Now it would have been totally hilarious had the object slowed down and parked in orbit of Earth. Totally would have been fun.

Well the explanation for that at least would have been.

 

Well, if that happened, either the Russians or Chinese with the ability to put men in orbit would likely get to call dibbs on first contact and access to advanced tech. Or get blasted and invaded as the assumed major power, of course...

 

Proof that the Lyran Wars actually happened.

*ufo sound*

 

There's almost always an X-37b in orbit now.