Evidence for ET?

[Fake Messiah]

The fact that people find it exiting to fantasize about alien probes does not increase the likelihood of it actually being an alien probe.  Therefore it by itself does not justify investing in more cameras in space.

Well yeah, I didn't mean just so we can see if it's alien probe or not but mostly to see how it looks like and what is it composed of, maybe even take samples from it. For instance, you can hear Dr. Pamela Gay explain it (this was recorded back in 2017 when it was first thought that Oumuamua is a comet)

[Jehanne]

It's a rather large deviation:

The Unexpected Trajectory of Interstellar Asteroid 'Oumuamua 

What if the thing was artificial and ET is making a course correction?

The thing was tumbling. If it wasn't, that would be major evidence of intelligence. The fact that it was tumbling strongly suggests against it.

Maybe it's a way for ET to have artificial gravity?

[Little lunch]

Why couldn't it something as simple as some smaller object hitting it and slightly steering it off course?

Teapot?

[Jehanne]

It's not aliens but .. it's aliens.

No, illegal aliens; they will probably want welfare and food stamps, and, of course, will vote Democrat.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's a rather large deviation:

The Unexpected Trajectory of Interstellar Asteroid 'Oumuamua 

What if the thing was artificial and ET is making a course correction?

People keep trying to Rama that thing.

[Brian37]

ET text home, ET text home.

[popeyespappy]

Why couldn't it something as simple as some smaller object hitting it and slightly steering it off course?

The answer to that is velocity. Nothing in this solar system except the sun could have accelerated Oumuamua to the speed it was moving when it was detected. The trajectory was wrong for it to have been accelerated by our star. It came from the direction of Vega, that doesn't mean it originated there, and is now headed in the direction of Pegasus.

[unfogged]

The answer to that is velocity. Nothing in this solar system except the sun could have accelerated Oumuamua to the speed it was moving when it was detected. The trajectory was wrong for it to have been accelerated by our star. It came from the direction of Vega, that doesn't mean it originated there, and is now headed in the direction of Pegasus.

It is obviously a Wraith cruiser returning home.

[Anomalocaris]

R

Why couldn't it something as simple as some smaller object hitting it and slightly steering it off course?

The chance that an collision large enough to effect its keplarian orbital motion occurring within a observational period of a few month is extremely small.

A far higher likelihood would be pockets of volatiles on the object sublimated into space, and provided the equivalent of a small jet thrust as they did so.

---

It's a rather large deviation:

The Unexpected Trajectory of Interstellar Asteroid 'Oumuamua 

What if the thing was artificial and ET is making a course correction?

The thing was tumbling. If it wasn't, that would be major evidence of intelligence. The fact that it was tumbling strongly suggests against it.

Even if it were not tumbling, it would not be evidence of intelligence at all.  

Tumbling means axis of rotation changes overtime.   So there is no real way for the object to settle into a perfect equilibrium with a steady centrifugal force.   Because the object is neither perfectly rigid, nor likely to be perfectly elastic, the rotational energy of a tumbling object must gradually be dissipated through internal friction and the rate of tumbling slows down,  until it finds a stable rotational direction and stop tumbling.  I read an estimate that for an rocky or metallic object the size of this asteroid, the period it would take for its rotation to evolve past the tumbling stage would be on the order of 1 billion years.   After that it would settle into a stable slow orderly rotation.

Since the universe is far older than 1 billion years, we can expect most interstellar objects similar to this asteroid would exhibit orderly rotation rather than be found tumbling.

[onlinebiker]

You gonna tell me NOBODY here read Rendevous With Rama?