Second 'Oumuamua-Like Comet From Beyond Our Solar System Suggests 'Alien' Comets May Be Common (sciencemag.org) 24
sciencehabit shares this article from Science magazine:
The comet is an alien intruder from another star system. But 2I/Borisov, the second known interstellar visitor after far smaller 'Oumuamua, discovered in 2017, looks remarkably like a normal comet from our own Solar System: an object a few kilometers across spewing carbon monoxide gas, water vapor, and dust. Researchers who announced their analysis this week say the size of the two objects, along with the rate of their discovery and other factors, suggests that at any given moment more than a dozen interstellar visitors at least as large as 'Oumuamua are passing through the Solar System.
"Our current telescopes are not powerful enough to detect all of these objects," says Bryce Bolin, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and lead author of the new study. But in the future, he says, large telescopes will be able to catch these visitors more often, perhaps two or three times a year.
"Our current telescopes are not powerful enough to detect all of these objects," says Bryce Bolin, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and lead author of the new study. But in the future, he says, large telescopes will be able to catch these visitors more often, perhaps two or three times a year.
So nothing like Oumuamua then... (Score:3)
So, we've spotted a second asteroid from beyond the solar system - something that's apparently not that unusual - and it's competely normal looking, unlike the bizarreness that was Oumuamua.
And it's Oumuamua-like because... it shares the separately mentioned characteristic of having come from outside the solar system?
Dude got a C in high-school English (Score:2)
I agree with your translation of bad high-school level writing.
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Being possibly elongated or pancaked was not the remarkable thing about Oumuamua. There's nothing bizarre about that -- out of the ordinary sure, but not bizarre, with lots of possible explanations and fairly comparable objects. Being from another star system was the only actually newsworthy thing about Oumuamua.
Re:So nothing like Oumuamua then... (Score:4, Informative)
Being possibly elongated or pancaked was not the remarkable thing about Oumuamua. There's nothing bizarre about that -- out of the ordinary sure, but not bizarre, with lots of possible explanations
Such as? 'Oumuamua appears to be the most elongated celestial object ever seen. The best fit model, if it is cigar shaped, has length to diameter ratio of 8:1.
The only explanation I have seen offered that gets you anywhere in the ball park are contact binaries, except that this seems incompatible with its spin, and each member of contact pair would have to be 4:1 by themselves.
and fairly comparable objects.
Name one. The most elongated object know to date are under a 4:1 ratio.
The extra-solar origin was notable, being the first detection of such, but it was actually not remarkable -- we expected there would be such things, and with better observation systems should start seeing these things regularly.
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I'd very much saddened by the insistence of many people that they know if Oumaumau is a comet or asteroid, artificial or natural. From what I've seen of the data it's an unidentified object.
Extra-solar is remarkable in that while we expect there to be extra-solar drift thro
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Far outside the ordinary range of elongation. And anomalous acceleration suggesting either completely undetected out-gassing or an incredibly low density (or alien reaction-less drives of course)
Those are the two big ones I remember, and I think there were a couple others.
Strange (Score:2)
"..an object .... spewing carbon monoxide gas, water vapor, and dust."
Sounds like a teenager to me.
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"..an object .... spewing carbon monoxide gas, water vapor, and dust."
Sounds like a teenager to me.
He went for the "funny" ... they can't all be gold. Good effort though.
No, they come in threes (Score:5, Funny)
Don't these guys known anything? Rama-like objects always come in threes.
The most important reason to travel in space: (Score:4, Insightful)
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"[An] amateur astronomer in Crimea, was peering through a 65-centimeter telescope that he built himself when he spotted the first hints of what would become his namesake. Within weeks, astronomers had confirmed that Borisov was moving so fast, and on such an odd trajectory, that it must have originated from a distant star system.... [A] team of 43 astronomers from 26 institutions in eight countries has p
There is no Oort cloud (Score:2)
Do not try to find the Oort cloud. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no Oort cloud.
Or, to paraphrase Sartre, the Oort cloud is other Kuiper belts.
(What I'm suggesting here is that all comets either come from our Kuiper belt or from other solar systems.)
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Are you ready to publish in a journal?
Very long period comets provide direct evidence of the existence of the Oort cloud. No other model will produce the number of such highly elliptic orbits seen.
Re:There is no Oort cloud (Score:4)
I think you have no idea of the average distance between stars. Perhaps you grew up in a globular cluster.
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I think you have no idea of the average distance between stars. Perhaps you grew up in a globular cluster.
Is it several million years travelling at the speed of light?
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Do not try to find the Oort cloud. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no Oort cloud.
Or, to paraphrase Sartre, the Oort cloud is other Kuiper belts.
(What I'm suggesting here is that all comets either come from our Kuiper belt or from other solar systems.)
Pure Genius!
Not to be confused with Val Kilmer.
Is only LifeOfBoris, playing KSP again. (Score:2)
After glorious kolbasa comet, he now made comet named after Slav superstar himself! Comet Borisov! Continuing the glorious legacy of vodka-driven interstellar expansion of Soviet dream. </russian-accent>
Are we sure? (Score:1)
Just like this thing. It is probably just trying to go coal-roll Elon's Roadster that he launched.
There's just one good point in canceling the TMT (Score:2)
Astronomers will no longer feel obligated to butter up the bullies by coming up with unpronounceable, impossible-to-remember Hawaiian names for celestial objects.
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You're right. The new object has been renamed "Hellstar Remina".