Sometimes in skill , you have to chase the longshots and take a chance on something so improbable it feels zany to vest in it , because the payoff would be so huge if it work . This is why the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope will be drop time examining the first knowninterstellar visitorto the Solar System , just in case it is an alien ballistic capsule .
Back in belated October , the PANSTARRS 1 scope in Hawaii detected what was ab initio opine to be a comet , dub C/2017 U1 . As the orbit was plotted it became clear that it could not have originated within the Solar System , and must alternatively have take form around another star . Further study revealed no trace of a cometary coma , prepare it an asteroid .
Even then many citizenry were reminded of the former stages of the classic novelRendezvous With Rama . In the Quran , the speedy object turn out to be an alien spaceship , which the crew of the one suitably position human spacecraft gets to explore . We lack the technology for that just yet , but are apply what we have .
Further observationsincreased the parallels . Oumuamua , as the objective is nickname , is exceptionally stretch – indeed its 10 - to-1 ratio of distance to width is unprecedented for an asteroid – but would make sense for spacecraft designed to minimize friction with interstellar dust .
Still , the chances of this being an alien creation are , well , astronomical . Harvard’sProfessor Avi Loebtold IFLScience the orbit showed no sign of manoevering , as a spacecraft might . Nevertheless , just in case the bountiful skill story of the century is currently top by , theBreakthrough Listenproject hasannounced10 hours of valuable time on a with child radio scope will be devoted to searching for signals at frequencies of 1 - 12 GigaHertz . Observations will start at 3 pm ET on December 13 ( 8 atomic number 61 GMT ) . Loeb observation that , despite raft of optical observations , only low - sensitivity measurement have been made with wireless scope , cheer Breakthrough Listen ' efforts .
Oumuamua is traveling so tight it ’s already twice the Earth - Sun distance away from us , which is making observations using telescope that operate at seeable wavelengths more and more difficult . However , Andrew Siemion of Berkeley SETI Research Centernotedit is still less than 2 percent of the distance to Voyager , and we can detect signals from there very well . So if there are any radio emissions in the correct wavelengths , the Byrd telescope should piece them up .
Even in the potential upshot that no signs of alien activity are found , there is always the chance of some other scientifically valuable termination . After all , it ’s agree there is something unusual about this physical object beside its orbit , even if most are n’t unforced to sign on to theories like Oumuamua being alump of dark subject . The more frequencies at which we study it , the more likely we are to observe answer , such as the opening the Byrd scope will notice the presence of methamphetamine hydrochloride we have so far escape .
