“Somebody's
Watching Me” – Some Scientists are watching a cigar shaped asteroid that they
think just may be watching us!
An odd, cigar shaped
object or asteroid, traveling at about 85,700 mph is currently grabbing a lot
of attention.
Named “Oumuamua”, this
asteroid comes from the constellation Lyra (Where you can find that super
bright star Vega), a full twenty-five light years away.
The SETI Institute,
which employs over 130 scientists, educators, and
support staff with a mission statement of “Our mission is to explore,
understand, and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe, and to
apply the knowledge gained to inspire and guide present and future
generations,” has been scanning Oumuamua with the Allen Telescope Array spending
in excess of 60 hours checking for transmissions over a wide range of
frequencies. There is another SETI project, Breakthrough Listen, which has
plans to devote 10 hours to scrutinizing the same asteroid using a large
antenna in West Virginia.
The expected outcome?
Radio silence. But maybe, just maybe, Oumuamua is someone else’s attempt to
watch & listen to us.
This is actually based
on some real data. Most experts that believe interstellar travel is possible suggest
that a ship would probably be shaped like a cigar or needle, as it would be
lean and aerodynamic enough to minimize friction and slim the chances of
colliding with another asteroid or space-object not to mention any harmful gas
and dust. Because of how solid it appears and how fast it’s moving, ‘Oumuamua
(fyi - means scout or messenger in
Hawaiian) is unique. Given its high speeds Oumuamua will be making a fast exit
from our solar system but not before scientists aim to figure out whether the ‘rock’
might actually be an alien spacecraft—either for living beings/aliens or
perhaps a robotic probe.
Breakthrough Initiatives, you may know of the
group, remember Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, to study the galaxy for signs
of extraterrestrials, is most famous for its Stephen Hawking–backed Starshot
project to send cheap spacecraft to Alpha Centauri at one-fifth the speed of light to find
signs of habitability or alien life. Its more conventional
SETI sister project, Listen, uses radio telescopes to scan space and listen for
complex radio signals that might be signs of an alien civilization.
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