'Oumuamua Is Not Aliens

To repeat the space time maxim: it’s never aliens … until it is. So let’s talk about ‘oumuamua.

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Hosted by Matt O'Dowd
Written by Matt O'Dowd
Graphics by Luke Maroldi
Assistant Editing and Sound Design by Mike Petrow and Meah Denee Barrington

Bialy & Loeb (2018)

Micheli et al. (2018)

Last year a visitor came to our inner solar system. To us it looked like a faint spot of light, moving quickly relative to the fixed stars. We’d seen similar things countless times before – lonely rocks, remnants from the formation of our solar system, drifting on their endless orbits around the sun and faintly glimmering with its reflected light. Nothing unusual about such asteroids and comets, but what made this object special was its trajectory. It was not in orbit around the Sun at all. Rather, it appeared to have fallen in from interstellar space, and was on its way back out again. The object is 1I/2017 U1, better known as ‘Oumuamua. It’s the first chunk of interstellar space debris we’ve ever spotted passing through our solar system. It caused a justifiable stir at the time. Hell, WE even did an episode on it.

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سلطان الخليفي

[woltersworld]

I think history channel has already planned a whole season of ancient aliens around 'oumuamua

[skeptic]

That's exactly what an alien would say

[madnessbydesignVria]

Maybe aliens sent a flat probe to look at our uniquely flat Earth...

p.s. This was a joke. The Earth is clearly a pyramid.

[theconsolidator]

It's clearly Optimus Prime's fossilized sword, spinning through space all the way from Cybertron. :)

[Scribe]

Just a lone rock on a voyage of discovery
To boldly go where no rock has gone before

[martinsavage]

The trajectory passing so close to the sun is interesting in itself. It’s practically a bullseye on the solar system. While it doesn’t break any rules of physics for a rock to do this, it is also the trajectory a device would take if it needed to alter its course by slingshot.

[KnightsWithoutATable]

Damn Kerbals leaving their space junk everywhere.

[billybelcaro]

One day millions of years from now an extra-astrophysicist will have the same reaction upon seeing Voyager 1 :D

[ChinnyK]

Sounds like something an Alien would say....

[KunalSharma-dxdg]

PBS Space time is the best resource for learning hot topics of today's Science.
Keeping​ us informative.
Thanks

[ianoxenham]

To respond to Matt's Question: "Is it harmful to emphasize an unlikely scientific interpretation beyond its probable veracity?":

I think it is harmful if the scientists or communicators doing so do not qualify the statement by noting there are other possibilities they cannot rule out, especially if those other possibilities are also more probable. Otherwise it gives the public a distorted view of how science works.

Even worse, it can also undermine public trust in science and scientists. Presenting the unlikely idea in a way that implies it is the most probable explanation can give the public the idea that “scientific experts think it aliens.” So if another scientist later demonstrates—as seems quite likely—that it is in all probability something else, that can look to the public like “the scientific experts were wrong” or the “the so-called experts were making stuff up.” People could then take that as a reason, or at least an excuse, to discount scientific conclusions and findings they happen to dislike (e.g., evolution, climate change, the Earth being round) by pointing to this as an example of how “scientists were wrong.”

Thus I think trying to engage the public at all costs by hyping your findings risks backfiring on the wider scientific enterprise and thereby contributing to anti-scientific sentiment.

[wokecults]

You believe whatever you want, but that looks like a Zentraedi battle ship.

[ava_niche]

Turn on captions and see all the spellings for 'Oumuamua XD

9:10 " *ooh more MORE* "

[LisaBeergutHolst]

Instead of Sherlock Holmes, they should have remembered the Sagan maxim: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[KumarAnimesh]

Lol this is the literal opposite of a clickbait title

[MrJocko]

How much did the aliens pay you to say this?

[tylerjacobson]

You look like a king sized Peter Dinklage

[szalonykon]

It was Silver Surfer. GALACTUS IS COMING !!!

[EcoAku]

Google's AI keeps impressing me; auto-generated subtitles display the word "manure" in place of "Oumoumoua"... A perfectly fit name for a turd-shaped object.

[kabkab]

As one person put it, "It was very intelligent. It took one look at Earth and kept going."