Comments by "N Marbletoe" (@nmarbletoe8210) on "Is 'Oumuamua Alien Technology?" video.

  1.  @aidanhammer6968  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto Holmes."
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  2. The strange thing is how much evidence there is on earth, and how little in space
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  3. yes. it is one pixel, but it is a real pixel
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  4. Ask Ike
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  5. hope the earth got a good puff as it went by
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  6.  @xisudra384  I lean towards the non-natural, but it's close. The best argument against it is that it is tumbling, so if it is a machine, it is probably malfunctioning. A piece of space trash perhaps, or a solar sail so old it doesn't work right
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  7. Yes, the tumbling action does suggest it is either natural or a non-guided type of artifact such as a derelict sail or fragment. It has two characteristics that have never been seen before in any space rock.
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  8. voyager doesn't spin but satellites spin. in any case, it is also tumbling! so it would probably be defunct, or a fragment of some alien ship, alien shelter, or ritual construction
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  9. yes, more likely a fragment of something like a ship or a corral for asteroids
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  10. Working with degrees of certainty is one of the prime tools of a powerful mind.
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  11. rotation could be good (parallel to the direction of motion) but not tumbling
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  12. I suspect it is a fragment of alien tech, or a defunct item, rather than a functional probe. That, or nitrogen ice. The ET we know about are a bit past the solar sail stage.
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  13. so is a diamond
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  14. It was tumbling, which implies a derelict craft or fragment.
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  15. one object has been found which showed similar acceleration without outgassing. it turned out to be a rocket booster!
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  16. The parsimonious explanation: It's a piece of space junk. But, we didn't make it.
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  17. There are kindly and advanced civilizations, but they don't make the news so we don't hear about them.
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  18. That assumption is ruled out with high confidence
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  19. it was at rest with respect to the local group of stars!
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  20. I wonder if they have ever landed on the roof and sat in lawn chairs toking out with the staff.
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  21. I see what you are saying. But also you can look at it in the other way. A claim is extraordinary if there is not much evidence for such things in the past, therefore, more evidence is required than for a claim that already has tons of evidence.
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  22. Arrokoth looks like two balls, not a pancake! two scoops.
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  23. That's a good twist on it.
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  24. yup, it is one possible shape, but the guy here also notes it could be a pancake instead. . the light curve is all we have to go by. it could even be a spherical beacon with a power source which simply fluctuates in a way that imitates a tumbling object...
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  25. "Would you give me 2.57 kilojoules of sunlight and I will give you 140 kg of invisible gas?" "Deal!"
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  26. Observations/ hypotheses: 1. We saw it so quickly after turning on the telescope: A. we got lucky B. the modeling is wrong C. it was directed at Earth by an intelligence D. something else 2. Ou was at rest in local standard of rest. Therefore, A. that kind of thing will happen rarely B. the average is the most likely C. we're looking at it wrong. the earth is moving rapidly in the local frame, so our motion is the one that might need some explanation. D. something else 3. orbit passes very close to earth A. directed at earth B. things that pass close are far more likely to be detected D. something else 4. brightness variation is highly unusual A. solar sail B. fragment of a big rock C. albedo variations D. something else 5. very shiny A. metallic B. like some typical asteroids C. D. something else 6. non gravitational acceleration with no outgassing seen A. large grains with no surface ice B. solar sail C. ion engine D. something else
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  27. And science is the opposite, which is also a mistake.
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  28.  @CoolWorldsLab  Correct, except that technically we have no idea what it did before it swung past the sun, as it was not observed at all on the inbound trip. After it was noticed, a small non-gravitational acceleration was measured.
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  29. No known natural object fits the characteristics. It is a one of a kind. That does not mean alien, but it means alien should be one of the hypotheses.
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  30.  @dascher6769  I wouldn't say the alien hypothesis depends on natural objects being impossible. There could be nitrogen icebergs and also alien junk, both of which could accelerate in the manner observed. It's not a process of elimination we need -- the data is too sparse for any conclusion. We need close up examination of the next one.
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  31.  @z-beeblebrox  Evidence is still evidence, until it is ruled out by investigation. So for the Fermi Paradox videos to claim there is no evidence of ET is in fact wrong.
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  32. It is legit if we take "extraordinary" literally. It is not legit if we use the concept to ignore data that doesn't fit existing conclusions. I guess the difference is how new data is treated.
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  33. Interesting. Perhaps we should define "extraordinary" in an objective way, = 'not found commonly in the data.'
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  34. good question. perhaps since it is tumbling rapidly, the varying thrust from outgassing would be averaged out and appear stable...
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  35.  @goliathonscave9834  "Perfectly" symmetrical, or perhaps just symmetrical enough so that any deviations in trajectory were below the threshold of detection? . Since the object was not imaged at close range, and there is limited data, that threshold might be rather high. In other words, perhaps it was zig zagging. . While I am no expert in orbital dynamics, I can barely juggle unruly cats in 1G much less in the weightless void of space, many researchers appear convinced that tumbling did exist, such as this group out of Belfast https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.11530.pdf . Of course, if we could quantify the perfection, then perhaps we would have a clue if the following formula is sensical: tumbling + lack of deviation from an anti-sunward acceleration vector = evidence of artificial origin
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  36.  @goliathonscave9834  So you're saying it was a very symmetrical object?
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  37. ma'o is cotton, so this is probably a cottony sail. canvas...
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  38. i believe the elemental makeup is unknown
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  39. It's not lazy if it's true.
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  40. We can plan for the next one and shoot a postage stamp at it. PS not directly at it so it thinks we are shooting to destroy the object!
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  41.  @geophat75  To be clear, it did change course slightly, but the inferred force was directly away from the sun. It didn't take a right turn or something.
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  42. It's cool they did check for that. But realistically it's much better, if possible, to send a tight laser beam rather than a broadcast signal which wastes most of the energy.
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  43. Yup. It wasn't just slow, it was basically motionless in the local frame, waiting for the solar system to pass by. . In the Alien category, it could be a derelict as you say, or perhaps a sentinel or "mile marker" purpose. However, the tumbling motion makes me think a derelict is more likely among the alien explanations.
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  44. about 5 x 10^-4 cm/ss . (which is about a millionth of a G?) . (from google scholar search "oumuamua loeb" and article https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aaeda8/pdf
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  45. A pancake shape was actually somewhat favored over the cigar shape, but the stats were not conclusive either way. It was not spherical, they could say that much. The acceleration with no outgassing was also anomalous. That has not been observed before, except for one case... which turned out to be a manufactured item!
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  46. the absence of radio signals is indeed concerning . however i don't get your objection to Loeb's first argument. it's not really a strong argument, and I don't think he puts it in a strong way. i don't think the roulette analogy is very good because in roulette, we know there are millions of people playing all the time so of courset ehre are winners
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  47. As Magellan said when he ran into America, "not atoll"
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  48. But... everyone who has searched hasn't found it. So the archeologist is being sarcastic? He means they all want to find it, and of course on TV they act like they did but that is TV not science
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