Oumuamua: Revelations from the ‘Mountain Patrol Goblin’ and the ‘Big Cigar’
title: "Oumuamua: Revelations from the 'Mountain Patrol Goblin' and the 'Big Cigar'" slug: "fanchunping-oumuamua-2018.en" date: "2018-12-21" category: "space" author: "Fan Chunping" excerpt: "At last, the mysterious Oumuamua was imaged by scientists and its motion data captured, making it the first confirmed extrasolar visitor ever observed by humanity. What revelations does it bring?"
Oumuamua: Revelations from the "Mountain Patrol Goblin" and the "Big Cigar"
Author: Fan Chunping (Senior Editor and Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology; Executive Editorial Board Member, Journal of Deep Space Exploration)
Published in Science Popularization Times, December 21, 2018
I. Who Is Oumuamua?
Oumuamua was first discovered on September 19, 2017, by Robert Weryk and colleagues at the University of Hawaii using the Pan-STARRS1 telescope. The professional findings were first published in Nature on November 20, 2017, under the title "A Brief Visit from a Red and Extremely Elongated Interstellar Asteroid."
Its nickname Oumuamua means "first distant messenger" in the Hawaiian language. The China National Committee for Terminology in Science and Technology rendered it elegantly as 奥陌陌—"a mysterious stranger bearing enigmas."
The initial publication described Oumuamua as approximately 400 meters long, with a length-to-width ratio of about 10:1, making it a triaxial ellipsoid of 10:1:1 proportions. Among the approximately 750,000 known asteroids and comets in the solar system, not a single one possesses such an extreme shape. Some have called Oumuamua the "Big Cigar."
II. The Unexplained Anomalous Acceleration
Oumuamua's greatest mystery is its acceleration along its orbital path after passing perihelion. If gravity alone governed its motion, it should have accelerated as it approached the Sun under gravitational pull—but then decelerated as the same gravitational force pulled it back when it departed after perihelion.
Two main explanations exist:
The cometary jet hypothesis—yet Oumuamua was determined from the moment of discovery to have no cometary tail and no jets. To explain the anomalous acceleration, one would have to circle back and argue that if it had internal sublimatable material, that could explain the observation. This is rather strained. Scientific research must use theory to explain facts, not alter facts to fit theory.
The light sail hypothesis—Avi Loeb, Chair of Harvard's Astronomy Department, and colleagues published a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters arguing that only acceleration pushed by a light sail under solar radiation pressure could explain the phenomenon. They suggested Oumuamua is either a light-sail fragment from a derelict piece of large-scale alien equipment, or an artificial extrasolar spacecraft equipped with its own light sail.
If the acceleration phenomenon cannot be explained by non-intelligent causes, then we must consider the possibility of intelligent origin. Oumuamua may not only be the first extrasolar object—it may be the first messenger of extrasolar intelligence.
III. The Fermi Paradox Puzzle
"Where is everybody?"—the Fermi Paradox. Many explanations and conjectures exist: the Great Filter hypothesis, the Zoo hypothesis, the civilization lock-in hypothesis, the multiverse hypothesis, the Type III civilization hypothesis, the civilizational self-destruction hypothesis.
The civilizational self-destruction hypothesis aligns rather closely with Earth's current predicament—seemingly in the process of self-destructing, with no hope of breakout in sight.
IV. Revelations from the Messenger
The distant messenger Oumuamua brings at least the following revelations:
First—at minimum, it comes from a three-dimensional intelligent world comparable to our own civilization in scale and velocity.
Second—if Earth is a zoo maintained by a higher intelligence, then it is at least likely not the only zoo.
Third—we have only measured velocity at a few points and traced a short segment of its trajectory. The fact that our "powerful" telescopes cannot find it may not be because it is cold and faint; it may be because it is not on the orbital path we expected.
Fourth—its continued acceleration after rounding the Sun—could it be equipped with technology for harnessing stellar energy that lies beyond our comprehension?
Fifth, the revelation of form—an elongated structure tumbling end-over-end around its short axis requires enormous tensile strength. If it is an extrasolar spacecraft, this makes perfect sense: the cigar-like elongated shape reduces damage from radiation and collisions; as for the tumbling, it may simply be the "Mountain Patrol Goblin" whiling away the boredom on a whim.
Published in Science Popularization Times, December 21, 2018