[Music]
good morning John a little over a year
ago we observed the first ever object
that wasn't from here a hunk of
something that had traveled from another
star system maybe thrown out as the
system formed maybe flung out much later
but now we know officially while we
cannot visit other star systems pieces
of them can visit us and Omo MOA is not
what we expected let's start with what
we know an object came into our solar
system going around 25 kilometers per
second which is pretty fast
it was varying in brightness so we'd
look at it one day and it would be 10
times brighter than on another day a
huge surprise which is where we got the
cigar hypothesis it was they supposed
long and skinny so when it was like this
had reflected more light than when it
was like this it was tumbling end over
end changing and brightness there are no
objects in our solar system shaped like
this Omaha has a length to width ratio
of 10 to 1 there are barely any objects
in our solar system with a ratio of 5 to
1 how would an object like this form we
don't know what would it be made of
probably something very sturdy or else
it couldn't maintain this strange shape
it brushed surprisingly close to Earth
right into the habitable zone of our Sun
and then maybe the weirdest bit of all
its velocity changed in ways that could
not be explained by gravitation alone
there are as far as we can tell only two
ways this could have happened one Omaha
is a comet and it off gassed 10% of its
mass as the Sun heated it up and this is
what comments do it's what gives them
their big beautiful tails or - instead
of being a big rock it's a 50 meter
square of shiny foil less than a
millimeter thick which fans of space
travel and or science fiction will
recognize as the description of a solar
sail see weirdly enough photons and do
not have mass but they do have momentum
and when they hit something they give it
a tiny push a big sheet of something
very reflective but very lightweight can
take advantage of that fact and you
for propulsion something we humans have
actually experimented with but look that
can't be right
right obviously a comet is a much more
likely thing to have floating through
interstellar space but until we notice
the velocity change we were pretty sure
that ol moolah wasn't a comet for one
thing it was long and skinny and that is
a shape that is very difficult to have
occur naturally at all but even more
difficult if it's not something that's
rigid and comets generally are fairly
loosely held together balls of ice and
dust the idea is that would definitely
break apart especially as it approached
a gravitational well like our Sun now
it's certainly possible that the change
in brightness isn't caused by its unique
shape it could be that it's just much
darker on one side than the other like
Saturn's moon a pitous so maybe we've
just learned that it isn't such a weird
shape also we didn't think it was a
comet because there was no tail as it
off gassed that theoretical 10% of its
mass we probably would have seen some of
that mass but maybe there are comet like
things from other solar systems that out
gas differently from our comets
different compounds different size dust
particles that would make it more
difficult for us to detect and finally
scientists think the off gassing would
have changed the rotation of the object
which it appears to not have now adding
to the solar sail hypothesis the spitzer
space telescope pointed at the place
where obama was and it did not receive
any thermal readings back no infrared
radiation meaning that it was very dim
in the infrared so probably it had
reflected away most of the heat received
from the Sun this is maybe the weirdest
thing it means that the object has an
upper limit on how dark it can be and
that limit is shinier than either
asteroids or comets from our solar
system which like thank you Spitzer
Space Telescope this was not what you
were designed for but that is very
helpful and weird piece of data and then
there's this this shouldn't have
happened the telescope that spotted Oh
Mulla Mulla does a whole Sky Survey and
is not designed to catch things like
this in fact it didn't spot the object
until it was well past its peak
brightness the fact that the pan-starrs
telescope caught an object like this in
the first 10 years of operation means
statistically that these events are
probably very common but according to
our computer models of how solar systems
form and how much stuff they throw out
it should not be common and this
discovery if it's natural and common
that we were off by like orders of
magnitude and it's actually wonderful
news that it did occur because if it
means it's more likely then we will have
more chances to study objects like this
in the future because we definitely do
not understand what this thing was I
don't know maybe there's a natural way
for a solar sail like object to form in
the galaxy who knows in general jumping
from this is confusing and weird and I
don't understand it too it's aliens has
tended to be a bad way to answer
questions in the past and as Carl Sagan
said extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence which we as Omaha
speeds off away from us do not have and
will never have now of course arguing
against the extraterrestrials created a
light sail hypothesis are two main
things one why would it be tumbling end
over end if you wanted to create a space
probe to study a planet you probably
would want to keep everything relatively
stable so that you could point stuff at
the planet to study it - why is it going
so slow 25 kilometers per second is very
fast to us but very slow in terms of
interstellar travel it would take about
twelve thousand years if you were going
straight at Alpha Centauri to get there
from here at that speed this leads to
alternate hypotheses like hey there are
more shipwrecks under the ocean than
ships currently floating on the sea so
maybe this is the piece of something
that broke down or ripped apart through
age or accident or attack its
artificially created but it's a hundred
percent dead just floating through space
because if we're gonna start
hypothesizing we might as well start
hypothesizing about interstellar war
but unless this is an extremely uncommon
occurrence debris from an event like
that would have to be way too common
like I was just be very sad if there was
that much detritus floating around in
the galaxy theory I haven't heard from
anyone except my own brain is that maybe
this thing is tumbling end over end and
not going very fast because whoever sent
it wanted us to see it maybe they
thought if there was some group of
intelligences significantly advanced
they could chase such an object down
maybe it's nothing more than an
interstellar greeting card blinking off
into the distance
unruhe sieved this time at least I
shouldn't have said that
that was pure conjecture and I probably
shouldn't even be making this video at
all as a person who hosts a science show
has a master's degree and looks like
this I am credible and I want to hold on
to that credibility and also use it
wisely observing an interstellar object
on its own is huge news it means that
these objects are more common and more
weird than we thought but the story that
would truly captivate all humanity is if
we found out for sure that this thing
came from somewhere else someone else
how captivating an idea is for our minds
should not have an effect on how
scientists consider that hypothesis but
it does have an effect on how it is
perceived by us it has an effect on how
we're gonna write that headline make
that video and whether we're gonna click
that link as a science communicator I'm
aware that people are gonna see the
sentence this is probably not a
spaceship and see more of the probably
part of the sentence than the is not
part so I'm aware that bringing up the
possibility that there is explanatory
power behind the hypothesis that Omo
amou was constructed by an intelligence
outside of our solar system is going to
inevitably lead people to looking much
more at that part of the story than the
parts where there might also be lots of
other explanations this is for example
true of me because I want it to be a
spaceship I want to know a new story I
want to have an event like that where we
all remember where we were when we heard
the news not the bad news just the big
news so ultimately I know that I'm not
gonna be able to trust myself with this
one you know I'm trying to look at more
things that way knowing that there are
certain things that can't really trust
myself with because I want things to be
a certain way
and it's especially easy to see in this
case where the event was ephemeral the
data have been collected and analyzed
and now all that we have left to do is
speculate or maybe that isn't true right
now we have only one telescope that
could have spotted Amla Lua another is
going online in just a few years and it
will be orders of magnitude better if
when we get that telescope online we see
objects like this flitting through the
solar system all the time we may be able
to determine that they are a new class
of object to understand them study them
even visit them or we could find that
blue a mullah like objects are rare and
well then we'll know that we saw
something special and that will be a big
deal
but maybe the best argument against the
alien hypothesis is simply that the
universe is weird many times we've seen
things in the night sky and have no way
to explain it and thought oh this is it
now we find the others and then science
caught up to observation this is an
object unlike any we have ever
encountered before so maybe the fact
that it's weird isn't actually that
weird John I'll see you on Tuesday
I read a lot of good articles listened
to a lot of good podcasts watched a lot
of good videos prepping for this this
one so I've linked to some of those in
the description thanks to all of the
scientists who worked on this project
got together very fast to make this
happen to start observing once we
realize that we have something weird on
the radar educational videos are exempt
from the four-minute rule obviously just
saying and the project for awesome next
week next week next weekend you guys if
you're thinking about making a video
promoting your charity of choice please
do that get it ready because we will as
a community next weekend be voting on
which of the charities promoted in those
videos will be getting grants from the
foundation to decrease worldsuck so
action do it boom excited we're product
for awesomes comic thanks to the
educational video exemption for allowing
me to just ramble on for a while John I
already did that