Posted on 11/23/2017 9:07:33 AM PST by EBH
All aboard for the slow shuttle to Pegasus.
It looks like a perfect “4” on the Bristol Stool Chart (Google it, select “images”).
“... for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system...”
RUN!
Thanks EBH.
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NASA is less than 60 years old. The science and equipment for measuring these phenomena is even younger.
There are known objects orbiting our Sun with orbits spanning hundreds of years.
The question of how it is known that this asteroid is interstellar is a fair one. It has not been answered, and it needs to be answered, else we are not talking about rigorous science here, we are instead talking tabloid science. The PR people of NASA often do that to create interest in the field. The photo they released is an ‘artist’s conception’ and their write-up may also be an ‘artist’s conception’.
“While originally classified as a comet, observations from ESO and elsewhere revealed no signs of cometary activity ... “
The quote is telling, the astronomers are not sure what they have.
Every object that is ‘slingshotted’ past our Sun immediately draws a curved trajectory because of the constant yet decreasing forces of the Sun’s gravitational fields. It is possible that an object attains a distance and speed sufficient to exit our Solar System, but the NASA write-up mentions variation in speed which is likely why it was classified as a comet.
No one is saying the astronomers who are touting this are wrong. But they need to explain and defend their assertions because that is what science is, a debate based on measurable, testable, repeatable, replicable quantifications.
Wouldn’t you hate to find that thing floating in your pool?
"[...] revealed no signs of cometary activity after it slingshotted past the Sun on Sept. 9 at a blistering speed of 196,000 miles per hour (87.3 kilometers per second)."
That's greater than the escape velocity of the Solar System. Also: It has no "orbit" (elliptical or circular path around the Sun) - rather, its trajectory is hyperbolic, as ground-based observations indicated.
Regards,
Short answer: Its observed speed is greater than the escape velocity of the Solar System.
As of Nov. 20, 'Oumuamua is travelling about 38.3 km/s relative to the Sun. Its location is approximately 124 million miles (200 million kilometers) from Earth [...] though its outbound path is about 20 degrees above the plane of planets that orbit the Sun. The object passed Mars's orbit around Nov. 1 and will pass Jupiter's orbit in May of 2018.
This passage doesn't make it absolutely clear, unfortunately (the author is unnecessarily holding back known facts that would make the answer obvious), but it looks very likely that the author is saying that, at a distance of roughly 1 A.U. from the Sun, the object had a velocity which was a multiple of the escape velocity at the Earth's orbit (namely: ca. 42 km/s).
That means that the Sun's gravity will be unable to hold it.
The only other theoretically possible answer would be if the object had swung by (very, very closely) several gas / ice giants (Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter) in succession, and thus gotten several "gravity assists" - something which NASA can accomplish only with modern computers and mid-course adjustments to the trajectories of its space probes.
Regards,
Thank you. Very enlightening, yet not definitive. The velocity may overcome the Sun’s gravity but the Sun also has trajectory as does this object. Velocity is not the sole variable in the equation and the Sun is not a fixed object.
Also telling is the confusion in classification.
I would grill the astronomists further, just to keep them on edge.
And note, NASA PR people are so quick to get a piece of sensational news printed. Remarks such as “It could be interstellar and if it is, it’s the first we’ve ever recorded” by an astronomist becomes “It’s interstellar and is the first ever recorded” by a PR writer.
Zentreadi scout ship.
I think we should try and catch it.
You aren't paying attention:
As of Nov. 20, 'Oumuamua is travelling about 38.3 km/s relative to the Sun.
"Relative to the Sun" means: "As though the Sun were motionless / were a fixed object.
Regards,
I know it is a relative measure. It can’t be anything other than a relative measure.
Because it is a relative measure, it has degrees of freedom independent from the object’s kinetic energy. Those second moments can play a part in slowing the object’s relative velocity. That’s what I would grill them on.
You are focused on the first moment only and ignoring the second moments. Often in modeling, the second moments affect the first coefficients greatly. It is not a static thing.
Has anyone heard of any planned flybys or plans to land a probe? This would be a great opportunity to do compositional analysis, including isotopic analysis to see if the elemental composition is similar to our system.
I’m leaving for Thanksgiving dinner, but here’s what’s missing:
The Coefficient Matrix A is time-varying, A=A(t). Each parameter estimate a_xy = a_xy(t).
Data acquisition over time usually reveals a limiting value, a value that remains stable but we don’t know what their computers are churning out.
The astronomists may be right, nevertheless, they need to be grilled as a matter of training.
NASA employees are usually not the first string. Relentless budget cuts leave a gap in the middle management age demographic, lots of young people with a few grandfather/grandmother adult handlers. The young get briefed/schooled by the heavyweights who work for outside contractors where the pay is multiples of a government salary. The heavyweights come in to give briefings/seminars. The young act as sponges. The talented young are scouted by the corporate scientist assets.
There are some very good NASA scientists though. Usually, they have a separate gig with a university like Caltech or a national lab like JPL.
The only reason I am commenting on this is that during the Obama years a lot of government young learned to lie, cheat, ad steal as a normal course of government business. NASA became focused on ‘Muslim Outreach’. To build back the prestige requires coming down hard on the current stable, challenging them and rewarding them for rigor.
It’s from the movie “Lifeforce”and full of space vampires. ;-)
It isn’t the Enterprise? Darn...Are they sure?
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