The Origin of Oumuamua

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I was watching a UFO show on the History (or maybe it was Discovery) channel the other evening and it mentioned the mysterious alien origin of the Oumuamua alien interstellar space probe. "It speed up and slowed down," they said. "How much?" I wondered.

And then I found this:

1I/‘Oumuamua as an N2 Ice Fragment of an Exo-Pluto Surface II: Generation of N2 Ice Fragments and the Origin of ‘Oumuamua

Plain Language Summary

Our Kuiper belt originally had much more mass than today, but an instability caused by Neptune's migration disrupted their orbits, ejecting most of this material from the Solar System, and simultaneously causing numerous collisions among these bodies. There were thousands of bodies like Pluto, with N2 ice (like the gas in Earth's atmosphere, but frozen) on their surfaces, and this instability would have generated trillions of N2 ice fragments. A similar fragment, generated in another solar system, after traveling for about a half billion years through interstellar space, would match the size, shape, brightness, and dynamics of the interstellar object 1I/‘Oumuamua. The odds of detecting such an object, as well as more comet-like objects like the interstellar object 2I/Borisov, are consistent with the numbers of such objects we expect in interstellar space if most stellar systems ejected comets and N2 ice fragments with the same efficiency our solar system did. This implies other stellar systems also had Kuiper belts and similar instabilities. There are hints that some N2 ice fragments may have survived in the Oort cloud of comets in our Solar System. ‘Oumuamua may be the first sample of an exoplanet born around another star, brought to Earth.

Even plainer: "It's gas, man. Gas."

Disappointing?

 

[shemp]

Yeah. I expected it to be piloted by little green men!

 

[casebro]

I thought it was going to be about meditation and mantras.

 

[HansMustermann]

Can't say I had any particular expectations about the exact material, but I thought it was already said the first time around that it basically farted... err... ejected gas so hard it changed its trajectory. Which, hey, I can relate

 

[Ziggurat]

Can't say I had any particular expectations about the exact material, but I thought it was already said the first time around that it basically farted... err... ejected gas so hard it changed its trajectory. Which, hey, I can relate

Gas coming off Oumuamua was always a candidate from the start. The problem was, what kind of gas? Comets regularly exhibit similar behavior where ice turning into gas alters their trajectory. But with comets, we can see the gas coming off them. We couldn't see the gas coming off Oumuamua, so it couldn't be the same kind of ice/gas that we see in comets.

Diffuse hydrogen is really hard to see, but hydrogen will only stay in ice form even in the cold of deep space if it's under pressure, so hydrogen didn't really make sense. If Oumuamua were hydrogen ice, it should have disappeared long ago.

Pure nitrogen works, but there's a reason comets aren't pure nitrogen ice but a mix of a bunch of stuff, so that's not an obvious answer either. The paper's conclusion is that it was likely (mostly) pure nitrogen ice, but the origin was different than that of comets. Icy planets like Pluto can end up sorting ices by density under gravitational pressure, so you could get big areas of (relatively) pure nitrogen ice. Add in a collision and you can get ice chunks thrown out of the solar system. So figuring out the details of how that could happen is what this paper adds.

 

[crescent]

Icy planets like Pluto can end up sorting ices by density under gravitational pressure, so you could get big areas of (relatively) pure nitrogen ice. Add in a collision Death Star and you can get ice chunks thrown out of the solar system. So figuring out the details of how that could happen is what this paper adds.

I fixed your error. The Empire is coming.

 

[Solitaire]

I researched the topic and the problem is not with Oumuamua, but with something else.
It's a long video, but for those interested in the topic it does clarify matters quite nicely.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Since it's a long video, perhaps you could save us all an hour and tell us what " something else " is..

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Oumuamua not alone.

A Few Interstellar Objects Have Probably Been Captured

When Oumuamua travelled through our Solar System back in 2017, people around the world paid attention. It was the first Interstellar Object (ISO) astronomers had ever identified. Then in August 2019, Comet 2I Borisov travelled through our Solar System, becoming the second ISO to cruise through for a visit. Together, the visiting ISOs generated a wave of inquiry and speculation.

There’s bound to be more ISOs than just those two, and a new study says our Solar System has probably captured some of these interstellar visitors, though they don’t stay for long.

Although ISOs are rare, the Solar System is old, and many have likely visited. Astronomers think that some of these objects can be captured in Solar orbits. This study takes a closer look at ISO capture and tests the idea that some ISOs could be captured in near-Earth orbits rather than Solar orbits. The researchers behind the work say that there could be a steady population of ISOs in near-Earth orbit.

The sky is full of ships aliens rocks.

 

[Hans]

Yeah. I expected it to be piloted by little green men!

Hey that's sexists it could be little green women too, unless they have three sexes, they were trans and, oh, well forget it.

 

[Hans]

Oumuamua not alone.


The sky is full of ships aliens rocks.

Just as long as they aren't called Bellius and Xyra (Bronson Alpha and Beta).

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

The Sky Was Full of Ships, by Theodore Sturgeon

Not one of his best works. But, then, 90% of everything is crap.

 

[alfaniner]

Oumuamua not alone.

A Few Interstellar Objects Have Probably Been Captured



The sky is full of ships aliens rocks.

Somehow I don't think it would have been as effective if Dave Bowman had said that instead "My God. It's full of stars!"

 

[novaphile]

Somehow I don't think it would have been as effective if Dave Bowman had said that instead "My God. It's full of stars!"

Now, that's the way to explore the universe...

Build a set of star gates and set them on their courses of exploration.

If your civilisation is still around, and interested, use the star gates to explore other systems.

Overheard: "That star gate is passing a yellow sun..." "Meh."

 

[arthwollipot]

The Sky Was Full of Ships, by Theodore Sturgeon

Not one of his best works. But, then, 90% of everything is crap.

I see what you did there.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Here is a recent analysis of Oumuamua's origin:

Oumuamua’s Mysteries: A Fractal Dust Aggregate from a Fragmenting Comet?

New Theory Sheds Light

Dr. Jane Luu and her colleagues from the University of Oslo have proposed a theory that may explain Oumuamua’s peculiar properties. According to them, Oumuamua could be a fractal dust aggregate, originating from a fragmenting Oort cloud comet. This theory suggests that cometary fragments form fractal aggregates that can be expelled into interstellar space.

Not exactly mundane but no aliens involved.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Now they are looking for more.

Agencies Are Making Plans to Catch Rocks From Other Solar Systems

In late 2017, a mysterious object tore through our Solar System at breakneck speed.

www.sciencealert.com

Quite a turnaround from "Gee. I wonder what that was?" to "Let's go looking for more".

 

[ahhell]

For some reason, I thought folks had figured out that it was some sort of denser material than Nitrogen? Which is why certain crackpots thought "Aliens!"

 

[Puppycow]

I'm kind of over Omuamua myself. I did see a new video from Astrum on the topic (published about 3 days ago) and I started watching it, but kind of lost interest. It's a decent channel though, so if anyone is really curious about the latest state of thinking on the topic, I'll leave it here and you may choose to watch it if the topic interests you:

 

[arthwollipot]

I keep seeing vids from Astrum pop up and they always trigger my suspicion that they're a junk sci channel. Is this not the case?