Oumuamua: Alien Probe or Asteroid? It Could Be Both

Oumuamua - courtesy NASA

Oumuamua is the strange cigar-shaped interstellar interloper that Harvard University professors think may be an alien probe sent to gather information on our Solar System. Slight changes in acceleration and direction have been given as reasons for this hypothesis. The theory is that it is the remnants of a “light sail” powered a now defunct alien probe. Oumuamua is Hawaiian for “scout”. 

SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak thinks Oumuamua is just another comet or asteroid from very far away, as in another star system. That explains its unusually large velocity and its path directly through the Solar System. Comets and asteroids are known to vent gas, which acts like a thruster on a space ship to change direction, speed up, or slow down. Other scientists are skeptical as well.

I agree with Seth. It would be highly unlikely for the first chunk of material we’ve spotted from outside our Solar System to be an alien probe. Although it is much more elongated than other asteroids, it should not be construed to be a derelict light sail. It should be pointed out how likely it is that an alien probe would take on the form of an asteroid because it may actually be a hollowed out asteroid. Why is that? Convenience. 

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Think about what our civilization is currently planning to do. We are going to mine the asteroids. So far, we are only thinking about mining the asteroids, but it will happen. We are running out of stuff on Earth, and there’s plenty of just about everything in space. The asteroid belt is a busted up planet, and it has the same materials we have here on Earth. 

A number of things are in collusion to boost asteroid mining. Nuclear fusion is about to happen. The helium-3 on the Moon will represent the outer space version of the gold rush for its ability to facilitate the fusion process. A NASA space station is currently planned for the Moon. As the helium-3 rush commences, a space elevator will be built on the Moon. Also, AI will come into its own, powering autonomous drones the asteroid mining industry will require to prospect and gut asteroids for a very fine profit. AI will also advance biomedical engineering and research, taking longevity in humans to biblical levels, making longer term projects more acceptable. 

All these things will come together in a very short time to initiate and accelerate asteroid mining. These mountains of minerals and metals orbit the Sun. Some of their orbits coincide with both Earth and Mars. Once these asteroids are mined, they can be outfitted with AI pilot navigators, living quarters, and science labs and used as comfortable, safe, fuel-free shuttles between here and Mars. They are safe because their mass protects against minor collisions and hard cosmic radiation. 

Want to go somewhere else? Stick a fusion drive on the asteroid powered by asteroid material and a little helium-3. Now, when it gets to Mars orbit, just keep going and explore the asteroid belt. If someone living in the asteroid belt were to see this spaceship, they would know it came from outside the belt because it is going a different direction and velocity than most everything else, just like we know Oumuamua came from outside the Solar System. It would seem a logical thing that this is what spacefaring races do when they get to a certain technological level. They mine asteroids and leave an outer shell to be converted to a spaceship, instead of hauling all that material out of some gravity well to build a ship.

This asteroid conversion scheme could be ramped up to hollow out big asteroids and turn them into large explorer vessels capable of going to nearby stars and checking out exoplanets for possible colonization. Fifty years ago Harvard’s paper on Oumuamua would be scoffed at as total science fiction created by hippy scientists smoking pot. With what we know is about to happen in this day and age, it still seems unlikely as a light sail but plausible as a probe. Fifty years from now, some researcher will run across that Harvard paper and laugh as he stubs out a joint in the recreation room of the Ceres Flyer, a converted asteroid riding a fusion flame to Alpha Centauri.

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Tabby's Star Could Teach Us a Few Things

You may have heard by now about the star KIC 8462852 under observation by NASA's Kepler Mission. Also known as Tabby's Star. It is nearly 1500 light years away in a constellation known as Cygnus the Swan. One of 150,000 stars constantly observed over a period of three years, it exhibits some peculiar characteristics.

To understand how peculiar, let's discuss mission parameters. The mission is to observe stars for signs of planets orbiting them. If a planet crosses in front of the star it will occlude the light. A planet the size of Earth would only reduce the light by a tiny bit, much less than one percent. A large planet like Jupiter might bring it up to a full percentage point. And this will happen on a regular basis as the planet orbits its star.

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The light dips for Tabby's Star are 15% and 22% approximately 750 days apart. Is it the same object eclipsing the light, or is it two separate objects spaced equally apart? I suggest it is one object. Why? For one, it is many times more unlikely for there to be two light blocking masses diametrically opposed in the same orbit. Two, one object makes sense if it is the result of intelligent tampering, and I think it is. The rotation time tells us where an object is in relation to its star. If we know the period and the mass of the star, we can calculate the height of the orbit. We know the period is approximately 750 days or 1500 days. The mass of the star is about 1.4 times the Sun. If the artifact circles Tabby's Star every 750 days the orbit is comparable to Mars if it were in the Solar System. If it is two objects equally spaced in the same orbit taking1500 days, they are much further out. They are not in the "Goldilocks zone" and much less likely for life to form or to be out there doing engineering projects on a grand scale. So 750 days would put this object in a more likely orbit for life to form and, eventually, become intelligent. An orbit comparable to Mars is still too cold to be considered in the Goldilocks zone, but perhaps these intelligent beings are from a planet that is in the Goldilocks zone, and they are building at the 750 day orbit because the material they need for the project is already there or near there.

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Why the difference in the dip in light? My suggestion is an artifact used by an alien civilization to construct their partial version of a Dyson swarm. A Dyson swarm is a net of habitats and energy collectors positioned in a loose sphere around a star to take advantage of its radiation output. A major portion of this artifact would be made up of mirrors that concentrate sunlight onto other material in the solar system to move it or melt it in the process of construction. Therefore, you are going to see different percentages of starlight dip every 750 days because they are going through phases of construction. Mirrors have to adjusted, habitats moved, etc.

What we are watching took place about the time the Roman Empire started to crumble. Think how fast our technology is going now, and we aren't even building giant suncatchers in space. That also means they don't know we are here yet because the Romans weren't broadcasting the Olympic games or I Love Lucy. It won't be until these broadcast signals reach them, or they see changes in the atmosphere due to the Industrial Revolution that we will give ourselves away. It will be the year 4840 A.D. before they could even respond to that information.

That this thing is only 1500 light years away is an amazing fact. If it is not some oddity of coincidence then that means there could be dozens, possibly hundreds, of such constructs in our galaxy alone. That giant chasm of time and distance also points out the localization and loneliness of an intelligent race.

The Earth came to the habitability party early. It has already suffered five mass extinctions. This world or civilization circling Tabby's Star may never have suffered any. Scientists believe that 92% of Earth-like planets haven't been formed yet so this could mean the herald of a boom in intelligent life taking control of it's environment.

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If it is a civilization building an artifact we should watch them closely. They have obviously gotten past the need to burn things for energy. Perhaps we can pick up a few tips.