Okay, a little backstory first.
The day was October 14, 2017.
A strange cosmic object was flying past our planet, and no one had the slightest clue.
Five days later, the interstellar object was on its way out of the solar system, when Robert
Weryk, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii
at Manoa, spotted it with the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, Pan-STARRS,
in Hawaii.
It was, from the moment of its discovery, a weird object — weird orbit, weird speed,
weird properties.
The strange object was nomenclated Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object to visit
the solar system.
But here is the thing, It left the Solar System faster than it had entered, never to return
again.
And here is when it becomes really interesting: While tracking Oumuamua, we expected, perhaps
naïvely, is that it would follow a hyperbolic orbit, as though the only force acting on
it would be gravitational.
What we found, however, was that a normal, perfectly hyperbolic orbit didn’t quite
fit what we observed.
It was as though there was an additional acceleration, as though something unobserved were pushing
it, in addition to the influence of gravity.
Shaped like an elongated cigar, by the time it was spotted it had already zipped by our
own Sun, performed a slick hairpin turn, and begun hurtling off in another direction.
Two things in particular fixated scientists.
The first was its mysterious acceleration away from the Sun, which was hard to reconcile
with many ideas about what it might have been made of.
The second was its peculiar shape – by some estimates, it was 10 times as long as it was
wide.
Over the years that followed, scientific journals and global media headlines swarmed with speculation.
Was it a block of solid hydrogen?
Could it have been a debris?
Or was it, as the esteemed Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb suggested, an artificial construction
made by an intelligent extra-terrestrial civilization?
Now hold on to your horses because things are about to go wild.
Welcome to Lab three sixty, its time to explore.
Okay guys, Avi Loeb is back again, and this time with a follow up research on Oumuamua’s
2017 visit.
This time, he suggests that not only are there aliens in our galaxy, but there are actually
four quintillion alien crafts speeding across our solar system.
To be fair, Loeb isn't outright saying Oumuamua was an alien spacecraft per se, but he is
saying we should be open to that possibility.
In light of that outlook, he's basically asking what "respectable" scientists would never
deign to.
How many possible 'Oumuamuas could there be in our solar system, that go unnoticed?
Loeb and fellow Harvard astronomer Carson Ezell looked at how many interstellar visitors
we've already spotted.
"One can use recent rates of detection of interstellar objects and known capabilities
to estimate the density of similar objects in the solar neighborhood," the astronomers
wrote in the study, as quoted by The Daily Beast.
Since 'Oumuamua, there have been three more interstellar objects detected by astronomers,
making it four in eight years.
At that rate, Loeb and Ezeller calculated there could be up to a staggering 40 decillion
interstellar objects in the entire solar system, including areas beyond the reach of our instruments.
That number is brought down to the more humble 4 quintillion figure when limiting the scope
to the "habitable zone" near the Sun, which is potentially exciting since, if some of
them are aliens, they'd be easier to detect.
Some of Loeb's theories are boundary-pushing, but he never fails to raise some fascinating
points.
Even if the majority of 4 quintillion interstellar objects turn out to just be bits of space
rock, which Loeb admits is likely, that still leaves quite a bit of room for some of them
to be alien spacecraft.
But where are they?
The first thing that comes to my mind is the Kuiper Belt, a cold, dark, and distant space
in the outer Solar System.
It’s primarily made up of icy objects, dwarf planets, dust, and comets.
So far, over 2,000 Kuiper Belt Objects have been cataloged.
Researchers believe these are only a tiny fraction of the total number of objects scientists
think are out there.
But one thing that fascinated NASA in the Kuiper Belt is the 15810 Arawn.
A quick google search will tell you that Arawn is a Kuiper Belt object, a large rock that
orbits round outside the orbit of Neptune.
But, is it a rock?
In April, 2016, NASA’s New Horizon Spacecraft reached the Kuiper Belt.
After capturing its first target, Pluto, the probe turned its sight towards a large object
on a strange trajectory.
Yes, we are talking about 15810 Arawn, named after the Celtic god of Death, War and the
Otherworld.
Now, why is it so special, you ask?
Well, most of the objects in the Kuiper Belt are made of rock and ice.
But Arawn doesn’t move like any of catalogued object in the belt.
This has made scientists question if it is made of something completely different, something
much stronger, because its rotating so fast that centrifugal force should have torn it
apart.
How could something spin so fast and stay intact?
Scientists believe that the fast spin is creating artificial gravity, and gravity, would be
the most vital thing needed for long interstellar travel.
You cannot have astronauts floating around the spacecraft while traversing hundreds of
light years.
This probed the New Horizon to take a closer look at the object.
And here is when things turn strange.
As the probe tried to get a closer look, suddenly, all of its censors went dead, transmissions
cut-off.
It was as if someone was monitoring our presence; someone or something that did not want us
to know about them.
But just before losing contact, NASA observed that Arawn was spinning like a large spaceship
would.
Now, you can say that it might have been a technical glitch, but here is when things
get crazier.
Only when New Horizon moved away from Arawn, it suddenly came back to life as if nothing
had ever happened in the first place.
Now I would leave it to you to assume what it was, but if its an intelligent alien civilization,
it makes complete sense to stay far away from earth, and silently observe us, from the cold
and dark space in the Kuiper Belt.
And whenever the need arises for a closer inspection, hop on to a spacecraft and camouflage
it, so that it appears as a mere space rock to the beings of the planet.
In addition, Loeb also suggested in the past that Oumuamua could be a piece of alien space
junk, a defunct sail craft, that has accidentally found its way to us.
Or, it may be an active reconnaissance craft, sent here to check out our solar system, he
had written in the study.
There are reasons to favor the latter explanation, Loeb said.
For starters, Oumuamua's very discovery was something of an anomaly.
Our own solar system, doesn't shed so many 'Oumuamua-like objects.
In addition, 'Oumuamua's motion is roughly coincident with the average motion of material
in our patch of the Milky Way galaxy, a kinematic space known as the local standard of rest.
Indeed, that's why the object's system of origin has been so hard to pin down.
"If I created an instrument whose identity I would like to hide, I would put it at the
local standard of rest," Loeb said.
Astronomers have used the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, and the Allen Telescope
Array in Northern California, to listen for any possible pings coming from 'Oumuamua.
To date, the object has remained silent.
What do you guys think?
Do you think Avi Loeb has taken it too far this time?
Or, is he way ahead in the game?
Drop in your comments to let us know, and don’t forget to subscribe to Lab three sixty,
because together, we will explore.