Interstellar Interloper (A/2017 U1)

[DAL59]

How long until it will move out of our telescope's range?

[Nuke]

4 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Well sort of. The first time I saw an animation like that, it came from a bad source and had some inaccuracies that I'm not noticing in that video. The video that you are probably thinking of was debunked. The original animation that looked sort of like that was about some pseudoscience rubbish about spirals and vortexs and living things and blah blah...

This junk is probably what you were thinking of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU

yea i think it was a completely different animation. i went back and watched the video and its not the same one from before. the one you linked is that video, it only looked similar to the frame that was shown in the video box. and you can tell thats bogus because all the planets are pretty much orbiting on the same plane and they dont look properly elliptical.  

[DAL59]

http://crowlspace.com/?p=2945

[Spaceception]

Project lyra, exploring the possibility of sending out an intercept prove in at least 10 years. 

https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.03155

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=38728

[kerbiloid]

I would draw an attention that Oumuamua is not a correct name of the asteroid.
The correct name is: ʻOumuamua.
Please, pronounce it right, don't entrench the mistake.

Spoiler

Also it is now 1I. Pronounced "One-Eye".
Almighty Odin has sent it?

 

[FleshJeb]

On 10/27/2017 at 3:53 PM, Josh IN SPACE said:

Just a warning shot from the people of Vega. We would best take care not to go anywhere near the system, or else start a conflict with these people. 

Time to fire up the spindizzies, it's the Vegan Orbital Fort.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_in_Flight

[Green Baron]

*sigh*

No, it is an asteroid from a system with a lot of dust. And it is long and red and soon out of sight.

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1737/ and

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25020

And our telescopes have recently become so sharp eyed that they can detect these rocks. More will follow in the future.

I'd be so happy if we could separate the fantasy stuff from the science. It is not a spaceship, nor a fort, nor an apocalyptic rider or anything else sprung out of cheap fiction stories.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Green Baron

[kerbiloid]

According to wiki, it probably came from Carina–Columba association.

Carina-Columba tried to shoot somebody with an armor-piercing projectile, and we are in the firing line.

It's a pity that it has been discovered in October, a month later than its perihelion.
So, we don't know if it was making an Oberth burn.

[ianm1981]

So its long, red and been travelling through interstellar space for millions of years on a course that brought it within a gnats whisker of earth... any sign of a small greenish companion "asteroid" that might have broken off  and headed our way?

 

 

Spoiler

It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere, all alone... more or less. 

 

[Green Baron]

19 minutes ago, ianm1981 said:

any sign of a small greenish companion "asteroid" that might have broken off  and headed our way?

Not a single. Our telescopes are becoming better. These things are (probably) just not that rare.

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

Not a single. Our telescopes are becoming better. These things are (probably) just not that rare.

Which would make me slightly more uneasy about flying through the interstellar medium at Ludicrous Speed, if the opportunity should arise.

Edited November 22, 2017 by cubinator

[Green Baron]

Anecdote, totally unrelated: Whales sleep at the surface. Sure, they must breathe. Which is not a problem for a merchant ship. The cadavers of the poor animals make for a few days of naval warnings until it sinks.

But a sleeping whale is a danger for small sailing boats on the open waters. Several incidents are known, with consequences for both, even with the loss of the boat. What do you do when you're single handed and can't stay on watch 24/7 ? You count the odds and hope for the best ...

Which is of course not an option for space travel :-)

 

Same for drifting containers.

Edited November 22, 2017 by Green Baron
missing aitch

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

These things are (probably) just not that rare.

The Earth is under attack?...

2 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

What do you do when you're single handed and can't stay on watch 24/7 ? You count the odds and hope for the best .

Silly whales would do like dolphines. Both halves of the brain sleep in turn.
(At least, I've read about this many times.)

Silly boats would blow vuvuzelas to wake up the whales sleeping around.

[Jaelommiss]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Silly boats would blow vuvuzelas to wake up the whales sleeping around.

If I were a whale and got woken up like that, I might just smash the boat out of spite. Keeping quiet and hoping for the best might be safer.

[magnemoe]

On 21.11.2017 at 10:31 AM, Green Baron said:

*sigh*

No, it is an asteroid from a system with a lot of dust. And it is long and red and soon out of sight.

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1737/ and

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25020

And our telescopes have recently become so sharp eyed that they can detect these rocks. More will follow in the future.

I'd be so happy if we could separate the fantasy stuff from the science. It is not a spaceship, nor a fort, nor an apocalyptic rider or anything else sprung out of cheap fiction stories.

Yes, still an weird shape, an comet would be no surprise at all as lots of them will get close to planets and sent out of a solar system. they would also be pretty visible on a flyby. 
How many of our asteroids has an so high length to width fraction? 
Is it it likely its an fragment from an collision between two large asteroids? 

 

[Green Baron]

21 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

How many of our asteroids has an so high length to width fraction? 

None until now. But that really means nothing since nothing is known about its forming yet. But it can add to our knowledge in the future when a larger database allows for better explanations and models.

21 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Is it it likely its an fragment from an collision between two large asteroids?

Not from "our" solar system because it is too fast.

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, Green Baron said:

None until now. But that really means nothing since nothing is known about its forming yet. But it can add to our knowledge in the future when a larger database allows for better explanations and models.

Not from "our" solar system because it is too fast.

No obviously not our system and the collision might easy throw stuff out of the system. 

And yes its still an weird shape

[DAL59]

[cubinator]

14 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Hmmm...what was the rotation like of the floating monolith at the end of 2001?

[DAL59]

 

[DAL59]

I just went to a lecture that started with a "News from the Universe segment" that had a good summary of a2017-U1:

The video should start at the right place

 

[Exoscientist]

On 11/20/2017 at 9:40 PM, Spaceception said:

Project lyra, exploring the possibility of sending out an intercept prove in at least 10 years. 

https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.03155

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=38728

 

I was surprised in the study by Hein, et.al. that they didn’t consider the possibility of using ion drive. Ion drive has already been used by NASA for space probes to reach high velocity.

Oumuamua was moving at a speed of about 25 km/s. The Dawn mission to Ceres could manage 10 km/s via ion drive. And the Atlas V and in-space stages used for the launch of New Horizons were able to give the spacecraft a speed of about 12 km/s. So using this architecture of chemical propulsion to leave Earth at an initial high speed then using ion drive analogous to that used on Dawn, we could already get 22 km/s. Tweaking both the chemical stages and ion drives should be able to gives us the 25 km/s needed to catch Oumuamua.

Bob Clark

[Spaceception]

30 minutes ago, Exoscientist said:

 

I was surprised in the study by Hein, et.al. that they didn’t consider the possibility of using ion drive. Ion drive has already been used by NASA for space probes to reach high velocity.

Oumuamua was moving at a speed of about 25 km/s. The Dawn mission to Ceres could manage 10 km/s via ion drive. And the Atlas V and in-space stages used for the launch of New Horizons were able to give the spacecraft a speed of about 12 km/s. So using this architecture of chemical propulsion to leave Earth at an initial high speed then using ion drive analogous to that used on Dawn, we could already get 22 km/s. Tweaking both the chemical stages and ion drives should be able to gives us the 25 km/s needed to catch Oumuamua.

Bob Clark

True, but it would need to get beyond 25 km/s or it'll just end up trailing behind it. VASIMR seems promising. Aside from NERVA (And ion), it's the only advanced engine that's been tested, and additionally, could get us the thrust needed. Use large solar panels for initial acceleration, jettisoning them; and wait to catch up using an ion drive to slow to a stop next to it? Idk, that seems too complicated actually. It could also launch on a cargo BFS (Or, a Falcon heavy, if we go small), that may go faster, and carry a large enough payload for a spacecraft like that. But the timeframe is ridiculously tight.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Spaceception

[DAL59]

Yuri Milner(the breakthrough starshot guy) just got telescope time on the green bank radio observatory.  They will look at Oumuamua to scan for radio signals.  Its not aliens, but, it might be aliens!

  https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/yuri-milner-oumuamua-interstellar-asteroid/547985/

[James Kerman]

I don't mind the article but I'll wager it's not aliens.
 

Quote

Karen Meech, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy whose team discovered ‘Oumuamua, has said their observations are “entirely consistent with it being a natural object.”