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AFP
This is the picture that the European Space Agency (ESA, in English) conducted from Oumuamua. in June. However, a new study suggests something very different.
When they saw it for the first time, in October 2017, several telescopes continued their trajectory for three nights, until they lost sight of it.
This was not a normal object. It measured 400 meters long, its width was ten times smaller and its surface was reddish. It was spinning fast, had a chaotic trajectory and its luminosity changed abruptly.
Those who first observed it, astronomers from the Pan StarRS continuous sampling system of the University of Hawaii, gave it its name, Oumuamua, which means "messenger from afar who arrives on first "in Hawaiian.
At first, the discussion of what was Oumuamua gave two possible answers: a comet or an asteroid .
"We have tested many plausible alternatives and the most practical is that Oumuamua is a comet and the gases emanating from its surface cause small variations in its trajectory," said David Farnochhia, of the propulsion laboratory. of the time. Jet of NASA.
Others, however, said that it was not a comet, because in the observations, they did not detect the characteristic tail of particles of dust and ice that these travelers usually have room.
Wes Fraser, of Queen's University in Belfast, said in February of this year that his strange move was perhaps due to the fact that he had been touched by another object at some point in its history.
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The telescopes of the Pan STARRS continuous sounding system that detected Oumuamua are located at the top of Haleakala volcano on Maui.
A new study by scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Center in the United States indicates that Oumuamua could occur through a natural process "still unknown in interstellar space [ISM, por sus siglas en inglés] ] or in the proto-planetary disks "
But another option considered is that its origin is, perhaps," artificial ".
"A fully operational probe"
When it says "artificial origin", astronomers Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb, authors of the new study published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, claim that "& # Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe, intentionally sent to the vicinity of the Earth by an extraterrestrial civilization "
Or it may be" advanced technological equipment ", in particular a solar sail, a device propelled by solar radiation or solar wind plasma.
Bialy and Loeb reach this conclusion. for the unusual speed and trajectory that the telescopes managed to capture in Oumuamua during the three nights of their observation.
"This is the first object discovered in the solar system that originated outside the solar system, since its discovery, Oumuamua has shown unusual characteristics, making it a rare object, belonging to a clbad objects never seen before, "Loeb told the BBC.
"What could cause Oumuamua's acceleration excess?" That's the basic question we're trying to answer: if it's not the tail of a kite that drives it, what else could it be? solar, "explained the scientist.
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Loeb compares Oumuamua to the solar sails created by our civilization, as IKAROS, the first interplanetary probe powered by a solar sail, launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2010 on the planet Venus.
Copyright of the author [19659003] Getty Images
Japanese scientist Yuichi Tsuda shows a scale model of IKAROS. The solar sail launched into space was 14 meters long.
"If (Oumuamua) is part of a collection of objects, there must be more than we will discover in the future Only a fraction of interstellar objects will be technological remnants of an extraterrestrial civilization.view everything that enters the solar system from interstellar space to know the true nature of Oumuamua or other mysterious objects, "said the scientist.
A study "quite defective"
"I am not very convinced and I honestly believe that the study is quite imperfect […] Carl Sagan has already said:" The extraordinary demands require evidence extraordinary "and this document clearly lacks evidence and there is no evidence" of extraordinary tests, "said Alan Jackson, a member of the Planetary Science Center of the University of Toronto, at the University of Toronto. an interview with CNN
Jackson thinks that if Oumuamua was a solar sail, he would be slimmer than the authors think of the investigation.
In addition, he claims that if it were a working ship " would have a much milder journey and an obviously radiation-induced acceleration" And in the event that it would be damaged, Jackson declared that his movement " would be much more influenced by the radiation forces only what we see. "
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Bialy and Loeb state in their paper that telescope observations are objects. "They are not conclusive enough to give a clear picture of Oumuamua, and one can only speculate on their possible geometry and nature. "
" Although there are periodic variations in its apparent magnitude, there are still too many degrees of freedom. – for example, the angle of observation , not uniformly reflective, etc. – to clearly define his geometry. "
Alan Fitzsimmons, astrophysicist at the Queen's University of Belfast, pointed out precisely in an interview with AFP: "Some of the arguments in this paper are based on numbers with great uncertainties ."
Katie Mack, an astrophysicist from the University of North Carolina, explains on Twitter: "Scientists are happy to publish an extravagant idea if they do not have the" slightest "possibility of making mistakes. 39, that the other possibilities are not exhausted a dozen times. "
Is Oumuamua proof that life exists on other planets? Loeb answered this question to the BBC: "I am Sherlock Holmes' maxim:" When you eliminate any logical solution to a problem, the illogical, although impossible, is invariably true. "
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