
Oumuamua continues to perplex astronomers a year after it vanished - glassworm
https://www.businessinsider.com/oumuamua-interstellar-space-rock-alien-spaceship-evidence-2019-1
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stupidcar
I really recommend this Ars Technica podcast that features a long and in-depth
interview with Avi Loeb:

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/nailing-down-the-
nat...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/nailing-down-the-nature-of-
oumuamua-its-probably-a-comet-but/)

He makes a pretty convincing case that there are several highly unusual
properties of Oumaumau that makes it reasonable to hypothesize that it is of
unnatural origin. Whether or not you're convinced, you'll at least come away
much better informed about his arguments that from the soundbite back-and-
forth that passes for debate in articles like the BI one.

~~~
ndr
Avi Leob is THE person.

You might find also interesting his interview on Rob Reid's podcast:
[https://after-on.com/episodes-31-60/040](https://after-
on.com/episodes-31-60/040)

~~~
skellera
I believe that is the same audio in the linked article. They said it’s an Ars
podcast but it’s After On.

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darkerside
Perhaps a dumb question but...

"The mysterious object flew within about 15 million miles of our planet on
October 14.

But it wasn't until four days later that humanity finally spotted it in
telescope data."

How do we know any of this if we didn't see it until later? Or are we just
reverse extrapolating it's orbital path from what we saw later?

~~~
FreeFull
In general, most laws of physics are reversible, so extrapolation backwards is
as accurate as extrapolation forwards. In the case where it's just mostly
motion and gravity, we can do it rather accurately.

~~~
darkerside
I know that, but that makes the assumption that the flight path was unaffected
by external forces. How is this distinguishable from, say, an alien spacecraft
seeing it was spotted, boomeranging around the Sun, and exiting the solar
system?

*Wow, sorry. Guess I'm a conspiracy nutjob for skiing an innocent question.

~~~
yongjik
Theoretically we can't distinguish them. But then again, if CCTV shows a
hooded guy exiting your shop's front door at 4 am, it would be safe to assume
that the same guy entered the shop some time before that, even though
theoretically it could be an alien lifeform teleported into your shop out of
thin air.

It's never aliens. (Until we actually find them, of course.)

~~~
darkerside
Seems more akin to saying, since we see this runner on the track, he must have
been running around the track for an undeterminable period of the past time.
It's just as possible that the runner just started running when you saw him.

All I wanted to know is if we observed the past path or inferred it. Seems a
valid question to me, but whatever.

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walrus01
I would really only be concerned if we see two more of them, because they come
in threes.

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hauntedHouse
Meh. This is tripe for a slow news day.

    
    
      1. OH NO! SUNLIGHT OFFGASSING!
    
      2. OH NO! CIGAR SHAPED!
    
      3. OH NO! TOO FAST AND WE MISSED IT!
    
      4. OH NO! UNANNOUNCED ARRIVAL!
    
      5. OH NO! THE MATH IS HARD! I CAN’T TELL IF IT ALL ADDS UP!
    

Taken together, none of these things are confusing or cause for concern, until
you introduce the joirnalistic willingness to ask questions like “Do you
believe in ghosts???”

Take an event with large gaps of direct knowlege, inject speculative anxiety
cutouts tat fit neatly inside the huge gaping holes of the narrative, and
selectively avoid alternative theories that could supply a less emotionally
charged conclusion.

