Quote:
Originally Posted by AstroViking
Hi folks,
This article (and scientific paper) is, at first glance, straight out of "It was the aliens that did it" camp.
Avi Loeb, senior guy at Harvard has postulated that 3i/ATLAS may actually be some sort of alien spacecraft. (Yeah, I was quick to dismiss this statement as garbage, too.)
Having read the paper and the not-so-science-heavy SubStack article, it's an interesting thought experiment that prompted me to ponder "what if?".
Before you start thinking that I'm with the David Icke group of (IMHO loonies), I'm fully in the "this is a random rock that's been traveling for an insanely long period of time and we just happened to be in it's path" camp.
What do you think?
Paper: https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/HCL25.pdf
Substack: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/is-the-i...y-b59ccc17b2e3
Cheers,
V. |
Hi Steve,
It's an interesting thought experiment but my long held opinion has always been that we are not now nor are we ever likely to be visited by extra-terrestrial lifeforms.
The problem I have with any such theories is the required lifespan of any alien species that undertakes interstellar travel. The object is travelling at approximately 200000 km/hr. It didn't come from the direction of Alpha Centauri, it came from the galactic centre. If it's source was Alpha Cen, 4.2LY, 4.1249e+13km at that speed it would take 25000 years each way, 50000 years to Sirius, 2.5 million years to Antares and 160 million years to the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy.
The concept of extraterrestrial visitation has never made sense to me.
cheers
joe