It might be a good time for the Oxford University Union to schedule a debate between two Arizona State astronomers and Harvard’s intrepid Avi Loeb, author of the recently published Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. “Extraterrestrial,” writes the New York Times Dennis Overbye…”is part graceful memoir and part plea for keeping an open mind about the possibilities of what is out there in the universe — in particular, life. Otherwise, Loeb says, we might miss something amazing, like the church officials in the 17th century who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope.”
“No More Speculative than Extra Dimensions or Dark Matter?”
“The idea of the existence of advanced extraterrestrial life is no more speculative than extra dimensions or dark matter. In fact, it is less so,” said Loeb. In November of 2018, The Daily Galaxy reported in “Sent By an Alien World?”: “You would have thought it was 1938 again following Orson Welles’ radio broadcast of the War of the Worlds the way Twitter lit up when the chairman of Harvard’s astronomy department, Israel-born theoretical physicist Avi Loeb, then the chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, co-wrote a paper that examined the ‘peculiar acceleration’ of the strange disk-like object that entered our Solar System suggesting that it is an alien spaceship may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth’s vicinity by an alien civilization, and probably had Stephen Hawking spinning in his grave.”
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“When it was discovered,” Loeb told Isaac Chotiner for The New Yorker., “we realized it spins every eight hours, and its brightness changed by at least a factor of ten. The fact that its brightness varies by a factor of ten as it spins means that it is at least ten times longer than it is wide. We don’t have a photo, but, in all the artists’ illustrations that you have seen on the Web, it looks like a cigar. That’s one possibility. But it’s also possible that it’s a pancake-like geometry, and, in fact, that is favored.”
Fast Forward to “The Debate”
“In many ways ‘Oumuamua resembled a comet, but it was peculiar enough in several ways that mystery surrounded its nature, and speculation ran rampant about what it was,” said Steven Desch, a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, about the first interstellar object from beyond our solar system was discovered in 2017 via the Pan-STARRS astronomical observatory in Hawaii. The object, named ‘Oumuamua, meaning “scout” or “messenger” in Hawaiian, was like a comet, but with features that were strange enough to defy classification.
The two Arizona State University astrophysicists, Desch and Alan Jackson of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, set out to explain the odd features of ‘Oumuamua and have determined that it is likely a piece of a Pluto-like planet from another solar system. Their findings have been recently published in a pair of papers in the AGU Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
From observations of the object, Desch and Jackson determined several characteristics of the object that differed from what would be expected from a comet.
First...In terms of speed, the object entered the solar system at a velocity a bit lower than would be expected, indicating that it had not been traveling in interstellar space for more than a billion years or so. In terms of size, its pancake shape was also more flattened than any other known solar system object.
Second… they observed that while the object acquired a slight push away from the sun (a “rocket effect” common in comets as sunlight vaporizes the ices they are made of), the push was stronger than could be accounted for.
Third… the object lacked a detectable escaping gas, out-gassing, which is usually depicted visibly by a comet’s tail. In all, the object was very much like a comet, but unlike any comet that had ever been observed in the solar system.
Desch and Jackson then hypothesized that the object was made of different ices and they calculated how quickly these ices would sublimate (passing from a solid to a gas) as ‘Oumuamua passed by the sun. From there, they calculated the rocket effect, the object’s mass and shape, and the reflectivity of the ices.
The Epiphany
“That was an exciting moment for us,” Desch said. “We realized that a chunk of ice would be much more reflective than people were assuming, which meant it could be smaller. The same rocket effect would then give ‘Oumuamua a bigger push, bigger than comets usually experience.”
Frozen Nitrogen–The Link We Observe on the Surface of Pluto or Triton
Desch and Jackson found one ice in particular—solid nitrogen—that provided an exact match to all the object’s features simultaneously. And since solid nitrogen ice can be seen on the surface of Pluto, it is possible that a comet-like object could be made of the same material.
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“We knew we had hit on the right idea when we completed the calculation for what albedo (how reflective the body is) would make the motion of ‘Oumuamua match the observations,” said Jackson, who is a research scientist and an Exploration Fellow at ASU. “That value came out as being the same as we observe on the surface of Pluto or Triton, bodies covered in nitrogen ice.”
They then calculated the rate at which chunks of solid nitrogen ice would have been knocked off the surfaces of Pluto and similar bodies early in our solar system’s history. And they calculated the probability that chunks of solid nitrogen ice from other solar systems would reach ours.
“It was likely knocked off the surface by an impact about half a billion years ago and thrown out of its parent system,” Jackson said. “Being made of frozen nitrogen also explains the unusual shape of ‘Oumuamua. As the outer layers of nitrogen ice evaporated, the shape of the body would have become progressively more flattened, just like a bar of soap does as the outer layers get rubbed off through use.”
Could It Have Been Alien Technology?
Although ‘Oumuamua’s cometlike nature was quickly recognized, the inability to immediately explain it in detail led to speculation that it is a piece of alien technology, as in Loeb’s recently published book “Extraterrestrial: The First Signs of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” by Avi Loeb of Harvard University.
Illustration of a plausible history for ‘Oumuamua: Origin in its parent system around 0.4 billion years ago; erosion by cosmic rays during its journey to the solar system; and passage through the solar system, including its closest approach to the Sun on Sept. 9, 2017, and its discovery on October 2017. At each point along its history, this illustration shows the predicted size of ‘Oumuamua, and the ratio between its longest and shortest dimensions. Credit: S. Selkirk/ASU
This has sparked a public debate about the scientific method and the responsibility of scientists not to jump to unwarranted conclusions.
“Everybody is interested in aliens, and it was inevitable that this first object outside the solar system would make people think of aliens,” Desch said. “But it’s important in science not to jump to conclusions. It took two or three years to figure out a natural explanation—a chunk of nitrogen ice—that matches everything we know about ‘Oumuamua. That’s not that long in science, and far too soon to say we had exhausted all natural explanations.”
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Although there is no evidence that it is alien technology, as a fragment of a Pluto-like planet, ‘Oumuamua has provided scientists with a special opportunity to look at extrasolar systems in a way that they have not been able to before. As more objects like ‘Oumuamua are found and studied, scientists can continue to expand our understanding of what other planetary systems are like and the ways in which they are similar to, or different from, our own solar system.
“This research is exciting in that we’ve probably resolved the mystery of what ‘Oumuamua is and we can reasonably identify it as a chunk of an ‘exo-Pluto,’ a Pluto-like planet in another solar system,” Desch said. “Until now, we’ve had no way to know if other solar systems have Pluto-like planets, but now we have seen a chunk of one pass by Earth.”
The First of Many to Follow?
Desch and Jackson hope that future telescopes, like those at the Vera Rubin Observatory/Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in Chile, which will be able to survey the entire southern sky on a regular basis, will be able to start finding even more interstellar objects that they and other scientists can use to further test their ideas.
“It’s hoped that in a decade or so we can acquire statistics on what sorts of objects pass through the solar system, and if nitrogen ice chunks are rare or as common as we’ve calculated,” Jackson said. “Either way, we should be able to learn a lot about other solar systems, and whether they underwent the same sorts of collisional histories that ours did.”
Source: Alan P. Jackson et al. 1I/’Oumuamua as an N 2 ice fragment of an exo‐Pluto surface: I. Size and Compositional Constraints, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (2021). DOI: 10.1029/2020JE0067
J Desch et al. 1I/’Oumuamua as an N 2 ice fragment of an exo‐pluto surface II: Generation of N 2 ice fragments and the origin of ‘Oumuamua, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (2021). DOI: 10.1029/2020JE006807
Editor’s Note: Interestingly, today’s article exemplifies the scientific process, which often includes continuous debate and attempts to explain evidence in different ways. These debates can sometimes be fierce and long lived, although are usually far away from the public eye. But when words like “life” and/or “aliens” are included, the attention from the public and the media makes the stakes higher. (Avi Shporer)
Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, via Arizona State University and Avi Loeb, Extraterrestrial (Kindle Edition).
Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. A Google Scholar, Avi was formerly a NASA Sagan Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). His motto, not surprisingly, is a quote from Carl Sagan: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”