Everything We Know About 'Oumuamua

Summary

In 2017, a mysterious object named 'Oumuamua zipped through our solar system, capturing the curiosity of scientists worldwide. This interstellar visitor's strange behavior, including its unexpected acceleration, has led to a range of theories about its origins—from a natural comet or asteroid to more extraordinary possibilities like alien technology. Despite limited data, ongoing debates and missions aim to deepen our understanding of such phenomena. As technology advances, so does our potential to uncover the mysteries surrounding interstellar objects like 'Oumuamua.

Highlights

• 'Oumuamua's discovery opened a debate about interstellar objects and their characteristics. 😮
• Scientists have theorized 'Oumuamua could be a comet, asteroid, or even an alien spacecraft. 👽
• Its unexpected acceleration led to discussions about invisible forces or outgassing hydrogen propelling it. 🌬️
• Ongoing studies and future missions aim to uncover more about such interstellar phenomena. 🔎
• Advanced technology like the Vera C. Rubin telescope is expected to help detect more interstellar objects. 🔭

Key Takeaways

• 'Oumuamua was the first interstellar object detected in our solar system, sparking intense scientific interest and debate. 🌌
• The object's strange acceleration defied known physics, prompting theories of alien spacecraft and unseen natural phenomena. 🚀
• Efforts to understand 'Oumuamua include proposed missions to chase it down and advanced telescopes to detect similar visitors in the future. 🔭
• The debate continues between natural explanations like dark comets and more exotic ideas such as solar sails. 🤔
• Projects aim to develop methods for identifying and studying interstellar objects to capture insights into their nature. 🌠

Overview

In 2017, the first known interstellar object, 'Oumuamua, whizzed through our solar system, sparking wonder and debate. Originally perceived as a comet, its lack of a typical tail and strange trajectory left many questions unanswered. With theories ranging from a peculiar natural asteroid to alien technology, 'Oumuamua has certainly captured the imagination of scientists and the public alike.

The mystery surrounding 'Oumuamua's acceleration puzzled scientists as it didn't align with conventional physics. Two leading theories emerged: Avi Loeb's suggestion of an alien solar sail and Daryl Seligman's hypothesis of hydrogen outgassing. Each theory proposes a distinct scenario, but current technology hasn't conclusively supported one over the other.

As interest in 'Oumuamua continues, scientists consider various ways to pursue further investigations, including future space missions and sophisticated telescopes. Efforts like Project Lyra aim to capture direct observations of such objects, while the Vera C. Rubin telescope promises new insights into interstellar phenomena. Whether 'Oumuamua was a fleeting glimpse of alien technology or a natural oddity, it has certainly paved the way for exciting explorations of the cosmos.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to 'Oumuamua The chapter introduces 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object detected by humans, which entered our solar system at high speed in 2017. Due to its rapid movement, it was only recognized as interstellar after it had already started exiting the solar system. The limited data available leaves scientists uncertain about its exact nature or origin.
• 00:30 - 01:30: The Significance of 'Oumuamua's Behavior The chapter titled 'The Significance of 'Oumuamua's Behavior' explores the unique characteristics and actions of the interstellar object 'Oumuamua. Its behavior was so unusual and seemingly defied the known laws of physics, prompting some scientists to speculate whether it could be a form of alien technology. The discussion raises fundamental questions about the nature of 'Oumuamua, its activities, and the possibility of other such objects existing in the universe, suggesting that our understanding of space and extraterrestrial phenomena might still be lacking.
• 03:00 - 05:00: 'Oumuamua's Origin and Trajectory This chapter delves into 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object to visit our solar system. It explores the various theories regarding its origin and trajectory. The chapter also touches on the scientific community's predictions about the frequency of such interstellar visitors, with estimates of up to 10,000 extra solar objects possibly passing through our solar system daily. Moreover, the chapter discusses potential plans to capture and study 'Oumuamua to resolve ongoing mysteries about its nature.
• 07:00 - 10:00: The Curious Motion of 'Oumuamua The chapter titled 'The Curious Motion of 'Oumuamua' delves into the vastness of our solar system, extending beyond the orbit of Neptune to the Kuiper Belt and the even more distant Oort Cloud. The Oort Cloud is a massive spherical shell surrounding our solar system and is populated by potentially trillions of comets bound to the sun by gravity. The chapter explores how some of the comets observed passing near the sun likely originate from this distant cloud, highlighting the scale and mystery of objects in the far reaches of our solar system.
• 10:00 - 19:30: Theories: Alien Technology or Not? The chapter "Theories: Alien Technology or Not?" discusses the peculiar behavior of comets originating from the Oort cloud. These comets have extremely elliptical orbits, taking tens to hundreds of thousands of years to return. Factors such as massive third bodies, like other stars, perturb their orbits, causing them to move towards the inner solar system. This interaction raises questions about the influence of external forces and whether there is an element of alien technology at play.
• 23:00 - 29:00: Exploration and Future Missions The chapter titled 'Exploration and Future Missions' explores the dynamic and non-stationary nature of our solar system's orbit around the galaxy. It highlights how our changing position affects the gravitational interactions with other stars, which can significantly alter the paths of comets. These interactions can either send comets hurtling towards the sun or eject them from the solar system entirely, highlighting the cosmic variables that play key roles in shaping our solar neighborhood.
• 29:00 - 35:30: The Mystery Continues The chapter titled "The Mystery Continues" discusses the discovery and implications of interstellar interlopers found in our galaxy. A peculiar cloud-like body suggests that such cometary bodies are not unique to our solar system. This indicates a dynamic process where comets are frequently lost and captured by various stars throughout the galaxy. The narrative highlights that, despite these exchanges, most of the oddcloud objects observed in our own solar system appear to have originated from the sun, as evidenced by their similar compositions. The chapter emphasizes the solar system's journey through the galaxy, continuing to interact with and be influenced by these cosmic phenomena.
• 35:30 - 40:30: Conclusion and Reflection The chapter 'Conclusion and Reflection' explores the concept of interstellar interlopers, which are objects that have been displaced from their original home systems. These objects often approach the solar system from the direction of Vega, due to the trajectory of our solar system through the galaxy. While the sun has the potential to capture some of these objects, the majority travel at such high speeds relative to the solar system that they simply pass through, with their trajectories altered by the sun's gravity as they pass by.

Everything We Know About 'Oumuamua Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] A mysterious object zipped through our solar system at incredible speeds in 2017. Dubbed a Muam Mua, it is the first interstellar object we've ever detected. But by the time we realized it was actually in the neighborhood, it was already on its way out. With limited data, we aren't actually sure what it actually is or where it came from. But simply being interstellar is not what
• 00:30 - 01:00 sets Amura Mua apart. That honor goes to what we saw Amuam Mua do. An event so strange, so in defiance of the laws of physics that some scientists have turned to the explanation of alien technology as the only means to explain it. What is Amuam Mua? What did it do? And are there more objects out there like it? I'm Alex Mccoan and you're watching
• 01:00 - 01:30 Astramm. Join me today in a deep dive supercut into our first interstellar visitor, the theories that surround it, and even plans to catch it up to settle the mystery once and for all. There are a lot of predictions in the science community as to how many extra solar objects pass through our solar system. Some think we regularly see visitors with up to 10,000 per day passing within the orbit of
• 01:30 - 02:00 Neptune. That seems like a lot. So, let's figure out why scientists think this figure is so high. The first thing to understand is that our solar system extends way beyond the orbit of Neptune. Beyond Neptune is the Kyper belt and beyond that is the Ort cloud. The Ort cloud contains potentially trillions of comets that are gravitationally bound to our sun. Some of the comets that we see that pass by the sun likely came from
• 02:00 - 02:30 and will return to this odd cloud with their extremely elliptical orbits taking tens to hundreds of thousands of years to do so. Some of the comets we see from the or cloud would never come to the inner solar system were it not for massive third bodies which perturb these comets orbits with their gravity so that they fall towards the inner solar system. These third bodies are often other stars. You see the solar system is
• 02:30 - 03:00 not stationary like we sometimes may perceive but we are constantly moving orbiting the galaxy. As we move in our orbit, we cross paths with the gravitational influence of other orbiting stars. Even distances of a couple of light years can be enough to perturb a comet so it comes crashing down towards the sun. On the other hand, it can also be enough for the comet to be pulled away from the solar system altogether, joining the ranks of the hundreds of trillions of
• 03:00 - 03:30 interstellar interlopers found in the galaxy. As an odd cloud-like body is likely not unique to our solar system, it must mean that comets are constantly being lost and others are being captured by stars throughout the galaxy every day. Although generally speaking, what we've seen of oddcloud objects so far imply that the majority of comets in our odd cloud did originate with our sun because they are mainly quite similar in composition. As the solar system travels
• 03:30 - 04:00 through the galaxy, we also cross the path of interstellar interlopers that have been pulled away from their original home systems. They often approach from Vega because that's the direction our solar system is heading through the galaxy. While the sun does capture some of these objects, most are traveling so fast relative to us that they pass right through the solar system, only having their direction of travel changed as they pass by the gravity of the sun.
• 04:00 - 04:30 Amua Mua is one such object. Amua Mua was first seen in our solar system on the 19th of October 2017 and was spotted by the Halakala Observatory in Hawaii. It was originally thought to be a comet when it was first discovered and got the classification C 2017 U1, but upon further investigation, it was reclassified as asteroid A27U1 when no coma around the comet
• 04:30 - 05:00 could be seen, becoming the first object to ever get a reclassification like that. Once the orbit of Amua Mua had been established, it also became clear that it was traveling too fast for it to be in orbit around the sun. We say that the object like this one has a hyperbolic trajectory because its velocity will see it leave the solar system altogether. It likely didn't come from the solar system to begin with. The object was thus given its Hawaiian name,
• 05:00 - 05:30 Amua Mua, meaning scout or first distant messenger. The International Astronomical Union had the unusual task of having to create a new classification of object just for Amuram. They decided upon I for interstellar. So Amuam's designation is now 1 I 2017 U1. As the first of its kind that we know about, scientists were excited to
• 05:30 - 06:00 study Amuam Moa to learn what characteristics it might have that made it similar or dissimilar to objects found in our own solar system. Scientists quickly noticed that there was something strange about this object. It was small, perhaps between 100 and 1,000 m long, and was believed to have an unusual shape, perhaps a cigar or a flat dish. It is believed to have this shape because its brightness
• 06:00 - 06:30 pulsated over its 7-hour rotation period. This was because we received more light from its reflection when it appeared longer from our perspective. However, this could apply just as easily to a saucer-shaped object. It also appeared to be tumbling rather than rotating along a set axis. A mua moa is unusual for more than just its shape. As it is like an asteroid, it must have originated from the inner part of its home system. So how did it get ejected
• 06:30 - 07:00 and make its way to us? Is it from a collision of huge proportions? Alternatively, maybe it really is a comet. But as it traveled through interstellar space over millions or billions of years before it got to us, it had been coated in dust, meaning that the volatile materials typically found on comets weren't exposed to the sun. But while these elements were intriguing, the thing that really set
• 07:00 - 07:30 Amuam apart from other objects was its motion. Ammo passed its closest point to the sun on the 9th of September 2017 at a brainmelting 87 km/s. But when it headed back into space, it didn't slow down like normal. Scientists watching it detected an inexplicable burst of acceleration counteracting the pull of the sun's gravity. Rob Warick, who is
• 07:30 - 08:00 credited with the discovery, said its motion could not be explained using either a normal solar system asteroid or comet orbit. The rate of acceleration was minor, only about 17 m/s when it was nearest the sun, and yet this was enough to cause a stir in academia. Amoa was not doing what physics said it should do. In the next few months, scientists were able to observe it and Muam Mua was
• 08:00 - 08:30 deviating from its path. In physics, objects can only accelerate when they are pushed. So, scientists began to try and explain what was pushing Amu Mua. A few initial hypotheses were quickly ruled out. This did not seem to be simple solar winds giving a small nudge. While it is a recorded phenomenon for the small trace particles fired off from the sun to push at objects in space, this small force was not enough to explain Amu Mu's acceleration, assuming
• 08:30 - 09:00 it was an ordinary asteroid. Scientists reached for another example in our solar system of accelerating objects, comets. As comets travel close to the sun, the ice within them warms and sublimates, turning into gas and spouting off from the comet's main body. This outpouring of gas and dust forms the comet's signature tail. But it also gives the comet a little push, acting like a little thruster on
• 09:00 - 09:30 the side nearest the sun that accelerates the comet away from the source of all that heat. But scientists could not detect all that dust and gas coming from a muam mo. To be sure, the Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope spent 30 hours trying to get any kind of reading on a muam mo, but couldn't, meaning this object emitted nothing in the infrared. Typical comets have comas and tails that Spitzer can spot like in this image.
• 09:30 - 10:00 Adding further intrigue to the debate, readings from Spitzer Space Telescope also indicated it was at least 10 times shinier than a typical comet, which would fit well if it were made out of something metallic. Then what was a muam mo? Let's take a look at an argument between two theorists with two theories. The first theory was the most headline
• 10:00 - 10:30 catching. Harvard professor Avi Lobe promoted in numerous papers that a muam moa could represent alien technology. He argued in 2018 that solar winds could provide the acceleration seen with aam mo but only if aam mo was actually much thinner than scientists originally assumed. between 0.3 and 0.9 millimeters thin. As a 1,000 meter long, 1 millimeter thin object was unlikely to
• 10:30 - 11:00 appear in nature. Lo argued that this had to mean it was artificial. A light sail created to catch solar winds and use them to accelerate through space from one star to another. This theory met the resistance from other members of the academic community. Daryl Celigman, our second theorist and a post-doal researcher at Cornell University, counted by co-authoring a paper in 2020 that said that perhaps the reason no outging was detected from Amore was
• 11:00 - 11:30 because Amo was emitting an invisible gas such as hydrogen. This would not have been detectable using the telescopes that were trained on Amo. Seligman proposed that Amo was entirely or largely made of such hydrogen, a hydrogen iceberg that was sublimating thanks to the warmth of the sun. And it was that sublimation that was causing the push. Lob disagreed. A few months later, he co-wrote a paper asking where
• 11:30 - 12:00 exactly this hydrogen iceberg could have come from. He showed mathematically that the starlight in the interstellar vacuum was warm enough that any hydrogen iceberg that formed in even the nearest densest molecular clouds would have melted before they got here. Lo was still convinced that an alien explanation was the most probable. His reputation was strong enough to send Celigman back to the drawing board who dropped the hydrogen iceberg idea. However, Seligman
• 12:00 - 12:30 continued to play around with the idea that Amore had been moved by escaping pure hydrogen gas. Initially, he didn't have an explanation for how this could be until in 2023, he met with University of California assistant professor Jennifer Bergner, who pointed to experiments in labs where water ice in extremely cold conditions hid with radiation could trap pockets of hydrogen, only to release it later when warmed up. As the ice structure rearranged itself, as it happened, water
• 12:30 - 13:00 ice is much more plentiful in space, and so is radiation. Cosmic radiation could be enough to provide the pre-baking that would be needed. Between the two of them, Zeligman and Bner wrote a paper arguing that Amor needed a new category entirely. It wasn't a regular comet or an asteroid, but rather a dark comet, one with a coma that was invisible but present. Their explanation accounted for
• 13:00 - 13:30 Amor Moa's acceleration and also for the lack of dust, as dark comets would not need to release dust as they were simply reconfiguring their structures and releasing the pockets of invisible gas rather than blasting gas out from its surface like a small gassy volcano. While this was not enough to convince Loe, who co-authored two more papers in the next month that accused Celigman of bad maths while also continuing to push his alien spaceship model. Seligman was already considering the next step in his
• 13:30 - 14:00 own logic. He began to wonder if Omore represented a dark comet, could there be other dark comets out there? He, Bergner, and others began pouring through the data of objects already existing in our solar system. They might not be interstellar, but was anything else in the solar system accelerating when it shouldn't be? Sure enough, they found six that
• 14:00 - 14:30 matched their criteria. Six objects that showed non-gravitational, non-solar wind-based acceleration that couldn't be explained away by any known mechanism. These objects were small, some just as tiny as 3 m across. They looked like asteroids and didn't have remarkable features. They were near Earth objects, all orbiting close enough to Earth that missions to them were extremely viable, and they were all exhibiting signs of
• 14:30 - 15:00 acceleration. To be clear, such acceleration was very minor, small enough to have been overlooked previously. These objects aren't zipping around the solar system from planet to planet like spaceships. They are not interstellar objects. But just like Amore, science cannot currently account for their motion, especially given that they do not have any visible signs of outgassing. And intriguingly, one of them is already scheduled to be visited
• 15:00 - 15:30 by 2031. 1998 KY26 is due to be visited by the Japanese Hayabusa 2 probe, an asteroid sample return mission that was launched in 2014 and finished its primary mission 6 years later, but since has been given a mission extension to visit other asteroids in the near Earth Apollo group. 1998 KY26 is rotating quickly, once every 10 minutes, and H Higher
• 15:30 - 16:00 Booster 2 will aim to perform a flyby to learn more about this water-rich, tiny object for the benefit of future human missions to Mars. Once it's there, perhaps it will become clearer what the source of 1998 KY26's strange acceleration might be. It's still not obvious who among the various scientists out there is right about a moa, but it's undeniably intriguing that more objects exhibiting strange acceleration have been detected
• 16:00 - 16:30 and highly likely that they will shed further insight into Amore Mo's possible nature and origins. If they are found to accelerate through invisible outgassing of hydrogen, Zeligman will stand validated. But if a little hatch opens up and a small alien form peaks out to wave at us before accelerating off out of the solar system, then we might regret not listening more closely to lobe. I think the former is more likely than the latter, as there is no way 1998
• 16:30 - 17:00 KY26 is a light sail. We have excellent imaging of this one, but either way, it will be fascinating to study. Exploring these dark comets within our solar system grants us greater insight into Amora's nature. But what then of other interstellar objects? Have there been many others since Amor more? We have had other visitors from outside the solar system, but this next one is a
• 17:00 - 17:30 little more conventional. Being the second eye object, it's been given the designation two Boris. Zooming in on Boris reveals that this object had a big cometlike coma and tail, almost the size of 14 Earths across. We couldn't see it with the naked eye, though, as the closest it got to the sun was beyond the orbit of Mars in 2019. Boris was roughly the same size as a
• 17:30 - 18:00 Moam Moa, about half a kilometer across. After its closest encounter with the sun, it began falling apart. This is reasonably normal for a comet of this size passing by at this distance. Also, its composition, while uncommon, isn't particularly unusual either. because it passed through the solar system at a greater distance than a Moam Moore, its trajectory wasn't hugely affected by the sun's gravity. So overall, apart from
• 18:00 - 18:30 its eye classification, it's a somewhat unremarkable object. Now, moving on to some other interesting interstellar objects that do not have the eye classification. C1980E1 was originally a solar system object with an orbital period of 7.1 million years. The furthest its orbit used to take it was an incredible 1.7 light years away from the sun. However, it passed a little too closely to Jupiter during its
• 18:30 - 19:00 last approach in 1980. Jupiter's gravity accelerated it just enough for it to get a hyperbolic trajectory and so this object will eventually become an interstellar interloper itself when it leaves our solar system in a few million years. On the other hand, we have had the opposite happen where interstellar objects have had their velocities slowed down enough by the gravity of Jupiter that they became captured and locked into our solar system. Again, I
• 19:00 - 19:30 mentioned Jupiter specifically because it has been determined that other planets aren't massive enough to do this and it has to be a third body beyond the sun and the comet that does the slowing down or speeding up. Mahalts 1 and Hayakutake C1996B2 are potentially such captured interstellar comets from another planetary system. The giveaway for objects like these are their highly elliptical orbits and their very unusual compositions compared to the majority of
• 19:30 - 20:00 other comets. This makes them interesting and viable targets for future missions as the solar system might have done all the hard work for us in capturing interstellar objects and putting them within arms reach. There's one more giveaway that an object might have extra solar origins and that is if it is orbiting retrograde to pretty much everything else in the solar system. An example of an object like this is 514107 Kaa Oka ALA. What makes this
• 20:00 - 20:30 object especially interesting is that it is also an asteroid unlike most other interstellar objects we would expect to see. It could also be that the volatile materials have already burned off if it was once a comet, meaning it would have been captured very early in the solar systems past. Its orbit is also unusual in that it is locked in a one one orbital resonance with Jupiter. While these objects are
• 20:30 - 21:00 interesting, they don't settle the question of a Muam Mua's nature, and there's much we still don't know. For example, where did it come from? We don't know. But we do know it came from very, very far away. To find Amor Mo's home star system, astronomers traced its path back over millions of years. It seems to have come from the direction of the star Vega in the Lyra constellation. Scientists found four possible home
• 21:00 - 21:30 stars Amamura could have come from, some as far as 81 lighty years away. But there haven't been any definitive answers on its origin story yet. And now it is over 6 billion km away, moving at 26 km/s towards Pegasus, about as far as Voyager 1 was when it snapped the famous pale blue dot image. Even if Amoram is not a piece of alien technology, it holds importance as the first confirmed interstellar object
• 21:30 - 22:00 to enter our solar system. So it is no surprise that scientists want to take a closer look at it. We noticed it only 40 days after it passed its closest point to the sun, but by then it was already 33 million km from Earth. We sent ground and space telescopes into overdrive trying to answer the questions surrounding it before it escaped our grasp. But 2 months later, by mid December, it was already too faint and fastm moving to be studied by even the
• 22:00 - 22:30 largest groundbased telescopes. With limited data and more questions than answers, some researchers believe the only way to learn more about a mu moa is to send a mission after it. However, catching up to a mura is a significant challenge for three main reasons. The first obstacle is gaining enough speed to catch up. A Moam Moore is over 6 billion km away and careening through space at 26 km/s.
• 22:30 - 23:00 No chemical rocket that exists today can reach that speed, making a rendevu difficult. And once we've caught up to a moa, the second challenge is decelerating enough to actually study it. If we don't slow down, we'll shoot right past it and won't be able to collect any scientifically useful information. And thirdly, it is difficult to find such a small object in such a large galaxy. Remember, AMU MUA is just 1,000 m long at most. tumbling
• 23:00 - 23:30 through the vastness of interstellar space. Still, these barriers haven't stopped research groups from making plans to catch up. While accelerating to the speeds necessary to catch up with a MUA is difficult, it can be achieved through the use of gravity assist from other planets. The most famous examples of a solution come from project Lyra launched by the initiative for interstellar studies. They've presented two different trajectories we could send a probe on. The first requires three distinct changes in velocity. First, we
• 23:30 - 24:00 accelerate the probe out of Earth's orbit and send it towards Jupiter. Once at Jupiter, the probe slows down enough to fall towards the sun. Less energy is required to do that from here than from Earth, as Jupiter's orbital velocity is less than half of Earth's. And as our probe approaches the sun, it's traveling at its fastest. At this point, the rocket engines ignite to give it the biggest acceleration possible for the amount of fuel carried. A technique
• 24:00 - 24:30 called a solar oet maneuver. By harnessing a solar obet maneuver in this way, researchers predict their probe will shoot out of the solar system at over 70 km a second. While that is definitely fast enough to catch up with Moore, there are still a couple of problems with this plan. Such a close approach to the sun requires a heat shield to protect the probe. The good news is that the tech for such a shield exists as the Parker Solar Probe use something similar. The bad news is that
• 24:30 - 25:00 it weighs 72 kg, putting a limit on payload mass. Next, sending a probe from Earth to Jupiter to the sun and back out to Jupiter to be sent out in the right direction is quite a long trajectory. There's actually a shorter way to do it. And finally, this plan requires using maneuvers that have never been carried out in a real mission before, giving it a low technology readiness rating. Plus, if you've seen my video about falling into the sun, you know just how hard it
• 25:00 - 25:30 is to do so. There is, however, another way to catch up to a moa. The second trajectory proposed by Project Lyra is as follows. Launch from Earth. Swing around Venus and Earth. Conduct a deep space maneuver to reorient the probe. Swing by Earth again. Then use a gravity assist from Jupiter to catapult our craft towards Amua Mua. This plan doesn't require a heat shield is a much
• 25:30 - 26:00 shorter trajectory and will result in a slower final speed of our probe as it heads into interstellar space. This would make it easier to decelerate on approach to a Moam Moore and allow for better data capture. Project Lyra has identified at least two viable missions with launch dates between 2030 and 2033 and an arrival at a Mua Mua at 2048. One of project Lyra's mission designers, Marshall Eubanks, feels a mission to a Mua Mua is inevitable.
• 26:00 - 26:30 After all, researchers are crafting proposals for missions to planets of other solar systems. But even 100 years from now, AmuA Mua will still be much closer than those destinations. But could there be a better way to get the data we want? What if we could have anticipated AUMO months in advance rather than after it had already passed by? Astrobiologist Karen Meech of the University of Hawaii, who led the characterization of Amuam after
• 26:30 - 27:00 its discovery, says, "We'll soon be able to do this for other interstellar interlopers that might cross our path." NASA estimates that an interstellar interlo passes through the inner solar system once per year. Since they're so small, they are hard to spot until now. The VeraC Rubin telescope set to become operational later this year in late 2025 would be able to spot these objects a whole 3 months before the telescope that
• 27:00 - 27:30 detected Mua Mua. What's more, it will get busy building the legacy survey of space and time. A database of 2 million images taken over a decade. This data will be ideal for identifying changes in the night sky, including the trajectory of comets and asteroids. A 2023 paper estimated that the LSST could find up to 70 AMU MOA like objects per year.
• 27:30 - 28:00 Another initiative to better understand interstellar objects is ISA's comet interceptor mission set to launch in 2029. It will park a probe in space for up to 3 years while waiting for a comet or an interstellar object to fly by. It'll then spring to life at the right time and carry out a close range flyby to build a 3D map of the object. It will be the first ever mission launched with an unknown target. Sadly, we don't know how
• 28:00 - 28:30 long we'd have to wait for another such object to cross our path. It would be a terrible waste of time, energy, and money if another amu moa like object didn't fly past in that time frame. And these methods wouldn't give us any data on a mua moa itself, which is now too far away for us to capture any new data about it from any of our telescopes. Whatever answers can be found there will be lost to the darkest reaches of interstellar space if we simply wait for
• 28:30 - 29:00 another one. Evaluating these alternative options, maybe launching an interstellar probe chase on Amuam Mua isn't such a crazy idea after all. It is technically viable. Nothing about it is impossible with our current knowledge and technology. But is it economically viable? Space missions require many resources, time, money, materials, brains, etc. Perhaps it is better to just let Amore's answers go, trusting
• 29:00 - 29:30 that whether alien or interstellar object, if it happened once, it will happen again. And our solar system will eventually be greeted by its next interstellar visitor. Ultimately, it all comes down to what is the price we are willing to pay to scratch the itch of our curiosity. Researchers at Project Lyra are certainly considering the investment. Is it worth it? In the end, multiple theories have been
• 29:30 - 30:00 raised to explain Amuam Mo and its strange properties. But without more data, we have no idea whether Amuam was another dark comet or proof of alien life or neither. It may turn out that none of the theories proposed so far are correct. That's the wonder of science. The more we explore the universe, the more we encounter strange and unexpected phenomena. And as we learn more about them, the better our theories become.
• 30:00 - 30:30 Perhaps one day we will encounter more objects like a more from outside our solar system, which may lend further weight to a particular explanation. The search, even for dark objects that currently act under invisible forces, always fills me with a marvelous curiosity. Only time will tell if these missions to gain more data will be worth it. But that's the terrible, captivating irony of it all. Unless we take the gamble,
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