(November 22, 2018 at 12:48 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: A functionally navigating light sail should not exhibit any sort of light curve that suggest tumbling, because it would need to be stabilized and accurately pointed relative to the star to achieve desired efficiency and control.
If The suggestion is it is an uncontrolled and tumbling light sail, I can think of another way to try to corroborate such a scenario. A light sail ought to be very flimsy and low mass. So it should have very low thermal inertia. So as it tumbled and presents changing aspect to the sun, it’s infrared signature should show almost no latency compare to variations in the amount of sunlight it receives. Is that the case?
Which rules out light sails that are working properly.
Spitzer was unable to detect IR coming from Oumuamua, which was a bit odd in itself.
