
- Oumumua - artist representation
In an intriguing parallel with Arthur C. Clarke’s sci-fi novel
Rendezvous With Rama, Seti researchers now plan to use a powerful telescope to study an unusual space object which recently flew into our solar system.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/oumuamua-alien-spacecraft-proof-life-seti-breakthrough-latest-asteroid-ship-a8104771.htmlIn Clarke’s original 1973 tale, astronomers become excited when a large new asteroid is detected in the outer solar system. It has an abnormal light curve which indicates it is spinning and has a long thin cross section. The astronomers who had long ago exhausted Greek and Latin mythology and are now working through the Hindu pantheon christen it
Rama.
The object turns out to be a giant hollow cylinder, a space-ark from an alien civilisation far outside the galactic plane.
In real life, scientists have christened the latest visitor
Oumuamua, a Hawaian word meaning ‘scout or messenger’, because it was astronomers from an observatory in Hawaii who first spotted it.
The mysterious needle shaped object is our first visitor from another part of the galaxy to make it into our solar system. It flew past in October and the trajectory indicates it entered our solar system from almost 90 degrees above the orbital plane of our system
It is long and cigar-shape. While it is hundreds of metres long, it's only one tenth as wide – and it is very unusual for asteroids to come in such non-round forms.
The body is travelling quickly through the universe, at up to 196,000mph, and looks as if it will not get wrapped up in our sun's gravity but fly right through and out of the solar system.
The Breakthrough Listen team is using the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia, US, to study Oumuamua.
The object is currently about two astronomical units (AU) from Earth, or twice the distance between the Earth and sun.
Lead scientist Dr Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley Seti Research Centre in California, said: "Oumuamua's presence within our solar system affords Breakthrough Listen an opportunity to reach unprecedented sensitivities to possible artificial transmitters and demonstrate our ability to track nearby, fast-moving objects.
Even if no evidence of extraterrestrial technology is found, the search could provide important information about gases surrounding Oumuamua or the presence or absence of water, say the researchers.
"On far-off Earth, Dr Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had woken from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain: ‘The Ramans do everything in threes’ - (
Rendezvous With Rama)