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| Interstellar asteroid checked for alien technology | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 13 Dec 2017, 03:02 AM (90 Views) | |
| skibboy | 13 Dec 2017, 03:02 AM Post #1 |
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Interstellar asteroid checked for alien technology 9 hours ago ![]() Artwork: Observations of 'Oumuamua noted its unusual elongated shape A project searching for intelligent life in the cosmos is going to check the first known interstellar asteroid for signs of alien technology. The odd-shaped object was detected as it sped towards the Sun on 19 October. Its properties suggested it originated around another star, making it the first such body to be spotted in our cosmic neighbourhood. An initiative backed by billionaire Yuri Milner will use a radio telescope to listen for signals from it. The team's efforts will begin on Wednesday, with astronomers observing the asteroid, which is currently speeding away from our Solar System, across four different radio frequency bands. The first set of observations at the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia is due to last for 10 hours. Previous observations of the object, called 'Oumuamua, have noted its strange, elongated shape, making it look a bit like a cigar. ![]() The object's velocity and eccentric trajectory suggests it originated outside our Solar System Mr Milner's Breakthrough Listen programme released a statement which read: "Researchers working on long-distance space transportation have previously suggested that a cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimise friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust." Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, who is part of the initiative, said: "'Oumuamua's presence within our Solar System affords Breakthrough Listen an opportunity to reach unprecedented sensitivities to possible artificial transmitters and demonstrate our ability to track nearby, fast-moving objects." He added: "Whether this object turns out to be artificial or natural, it's a great target for Listen." Prof Andrew Coates, from UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Dorking, who is not involved with Breakthrough Listen, told BBC Surrey radio: "I believe there is an experiment being done to actually listen to this object to see if there are any potential signs of life on it. ![]() The observations will be carried out using the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, US "I think this is most unlikely because it's left over from the beginning of that planetary system elsewhere. Much better ways of looking for life are actually missions like our ExoMars project, which is going to be going to Mars in 2020, drilling underneath the surface to look for signs of life. We're building the camera system for that." He added: "But as this thing is passing through very quickly, why not have a listen just in case. But I think it's most unlikely." Other researchers who have carried out observations of the asteroid with ground telescopes say that, apart from its shape, it closely resembles natural objects found in the outer parts of our Solar System. It has a reddish colour, which is often indicative of organic compounds that have been irradiated by cosmic rays. Measurements suggest it has a dense structure and is comprised of rock and metal, but with little - if any - water-ice. Although 'Oumuamua formed around another star, scientists think it could have been wandering through the Milky Way, unattached to any star system, for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounter with our Solar System. The asteroid's name, 'Oumuamua, means "a messenger from afar arriving first" in Hawaiian. Source: .com
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| skibboy | 15 Dec 2017, 02:37 AM Post #2 |
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14 December 2017 No alien 'signals' from cigar-shaped asteroid: researchers ![]() © European Southern Observatory/AFP/File | The object, dubbed Oumuamua, was spotted by several Earthly telescopes two months ago, and is thought to be about 400 metres (1,300 feet) long, and thin -- only about 40m wide PARIS (AFP) - No alien signals have been detected from an interstellar, cigar-shaped space rock discovered travelling through our Solar System in October, researchers listening for evidence of extraterrestrial technology said Thursday. The object, dubbed Oumuamua, was spotted by several Earthly telescopes two months ago. Given its weird trajectory, surprised researchers immediately concluded it was from beyond our planetary system -- the first interstellar object ever identified in our midst. The rock is thought to be about 400 metres (1,300 feet) long, and thin -- only about 40 m wide, a never-before-seen shape for an asteroid. After its discovery was announced last month, a project called Breakthrough Listen, dedicated to finding signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, said it would study the rock for artificial signals. "No such signals have been detected" by its network of telescopes, the project said Thursday, adding: "the analysis is not yet complete". Oumuamua is a Hawaiian name meaning "messenger" or "scout". This scout may have been travelling through space for hundreds of millions, even billions, of years. Prior to its discovery, none of the 750,000-odd known asteroids and comets in the Solar System were thought to have originated elsewhere. "Oumuamua is most likely an asteroid, ejected from its host star in some chaotic event billions of years ago, and finding its way to our Solar System by chance," Andrew Siemion of the University of California Berkeley told AFP. He heads the Breakthrough Listen laboratory. According to NASA, the object is travelling at about 38.3 kilometres per second relative to the Sun. It is about 200 million kilometres (125 million miles) from Earth. It passed Mars' orbit in November, and will pass by that of Jupiter in May next year, before exiting beyond Saturn's orbit in January 2019. Source: .com
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| skibboy | 19 Dec 2017, 02:27 AM Post #3 |
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Interstellar object may hold 'alien' water By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website 6 hours ago The first known interstellar asteroid may hold water from another star system in its interior, according to a study. Discovered on 19 October, the object's speed and trajectory strongly suggested it originated beyond our Solar System. The body showed no signs of "outgassing" as it approached the Sun, strengthening the idea that it held little if any water-ice. But the latest findings suggest water might be trapped under a thick, carbon-rich coating on its surface. The results come as a project to search for life in the cosmos has been using a radio telescope to check for radio signals coming from the strange, elongated object, named 'Oumuamua. Astronomers from the Breakthrough Listen initiative have been looking across four different radio frequency bands for anything that might resemble a signal resulting from alien technology. But their preliminary results have drawn a blank. The latest research - along with a previous academic paper - support a natural origin for the cosmic interloper. Furthermore, they measured the way that 'Oumuamua reflects sunlight and found it similar to icy objects from our own Solar System that are covered with a dry crust. "We've got high signal-to-noise spectra (the 'fingerprint' of light reflected or emitted by the asteroid) both at optical wavelengths and at infrared wavelengths. Putting those together is crucial," Prof Alan Fitzsimmons, from Queen's University Belfast (QUB), one of the authors of the new study in Nature Astronomy. He added: "What we do know is that the spectra don't look like something artificial." Interstellar overdrive Their measurements suggest that millions of years of exposure to cosmic rays have created an insulating, carbon-rich layer on the outside that could have shielded an icy interior from its encounter with the Sun. This process of irradiation has left it with a somewhat reddish hue, similar to objects encountered in the frozen outer reaches of our Solar System. "When it was near the Sun, the surface would have been 300C (600 Kelvin), but half a metre or more beneath the surface, the ice could have remained," Prof Fitzsimmons told BBC News. ![]() The Gemini North observatory was used to gather observations of 'Oumuamua Previous measurements suggest the object is at least 10 times longer than it is wide. That ratio is more extreme than that of any asteroid or comet ever observed in our Solar System. Uncertainties remain as to its size, but it is thought to be at least 400m long. "We don't know its mass and so it could still be fragile and have a relatively low density," said Prof Fitzsimmons. "That would still be consistent with the rate at which it is spinning - which is about once every seven-and-a-half hours or so. Something with the strength of talcum powder would hold itself together at that speed." Molten core He added: "It's entirely consistent with cometary bodies we've studied - with the Rosetta probe, for example - in our own Solar System." Co-author Dr Michele Bannister, also from QUB, commented: "We've discovered that this is a planetesimal with a well-baked crust that looks a lot like the tiniest worlds in the outer regions of our Solar System, has a greyish/red surface and is highly elongated, probably about the size and shape of the Gherkin skyscraper in London. "It's fascinating that the first interstellar object discovered looks so much like a tiny world from our own home system. This suggests that the way our planets and asteroids formed has a lot of kinship to the systems around other stars." A number of ideas have been discussed to explain the unusual shape of 'Oumuamua. These include the possibility that it could be composed of separate objects that joined together, that a collision between two bodies with molten cores ejected rock that then froze in an elongated shape, and that it is a shard of a bigger object destroyed in a supernova. ![]() Artwork: 'Oumuamua may have spent millions of years travelling the Milky Way (shown here) before its encounter with the Sun In a paper recently published on the Arxiv pre-print server, Gábor Domokos, from the Budapest University of Technology in Hungary, and colleagues suggest that, over millions of years, collisions between 'Oumuamua and many speeding interstellar dust grains could produce the object's observed shape. Prof Fitzsimmons said this idea was very interesting, and added: "I think what we're looking at here is the initial flurry of scientists running around saying: 'How did it get like this, where's it come from, what's it made of.' It's incredibly exciting. "I think after a few months you will see people focus down on one or two possibilities for all these things. But this just shows you: it's a symptom of what an amazing, interesting object this is... we can't wait for the next one." If planets form around other stars the same way they did in the Solar System, many objects the size of 'Oumuamua should get slung out into space. The interstellar visitor may provide the first evidence of that process. "All the data we have at the moment turn out to be consistent with what we might expect from an object ejected by another star," he said. But asked about Breakthrough Listen's initiative, he said: "If I had a radio telescope, I might give it a go." Source: .com
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9:16 AM Jul 11