Is 1I/’Oumuamua an Alien Spacecraft?

sites.psu.edu

2 pointsmbgaxyz4 comments

Why would anyone want to do an almost full 180 on an interstellar spacecraft? There is very little delta-v to be gained from that.

It's not like the gravity assist from the Sun would compensate for the extra couple hundred thousand years from the detour.

It's an "angle of 66° from the direction of its approach" says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua#Trajectory . Not "almost full 180".

It's not an interstellar spacecraft. I started to think of examples, but none make sense with what we know. It'll still be within our Oort cloud for the next 20,000 years, and it doesn't seem lined up with anything previous or next.

OK, it's a 130 degree turn. Still, it's quite a detour if you are trying to get from A to B.

And sure, it's not likely to be an interstellar spacecraft, but a very weird object still.

And even if it were an interstellar craft, it'd be a seriously lame one using a gravity assist ;-)

Maybe it was scanning us?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com