Spoiler warning:
There are no aliens.
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The theory is based on the object’s “excess acceleration,” or its unexpected boost in speed as it traveled through and ultimately out of our solar system in January 2018.
Emphasis mine.
They took one look at a MAGA rally and got the hell outta Dodge.
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I’ll post the image we got with our most powerful telescopes:
.
It was just too far away to get any kind of detail beyond average color, and moving too fast for anything we have to intercept it, not that we have anything even remotely capable of intercepting something like this.
By the way, the clickbait headline really isn’t supported by the paper. It was basically saying that the object was lighter than expected and more effected by solar wind.
This is one of those things where I kind of wish an eccentric billionaire like Elon Musk would build a space probe with a small but powerful telescope, some lasers with various wavelengths, a SDR with a few antennas, and a shit ton of fuel. Launch it with a Falcon Heavy in to a high orbit and have it sit there waiting for another object like this. Something that can be prepped and ready to go in just a few hours while the intercept window is still open. Or where we can get the flyby to happen at a few hundred km instead of a few million.
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Thanks! Love that Tom Lehrer reference!
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I wrote a short story in high school called “Fallen Angel” where a defunct alien probe just happened to fly into the Hubble’s field of view and eventually they were able to find and track it, and it got close enough they could “catch” it with the shuttle. Eventually the aliens came and took it back because even their old technology was too advanced for use. It was something we would have to figure out for ourselves.
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Odd that UFOs in the 1800s where like they were designed in the 1800s, like airships.
And UFO’s in the 50’s were like they where designed in the 50’s with lots of chrome and streamlining.
and UFO’s in the 70’s were like they where designed in the 70’s with lots of pinball machine lights and Spielberg like exteriors.
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Obligatory xkcd
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“Sometimes a cigar-shaped object is just a cigar-shaped object.” —Space Freud
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If it’s just a big rock in space, it could reduce speed unexpectedly if it hit another hunk of rock in space. OR it could be Space Vampires.
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Those aliens are tricky, let me tell you…
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Funny thing, there are no aliens in Riddick, it’s all just us 
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“What the hell are you doing? Slowing down? HERE?”
“I don’t see why --”
“Listen, junior, have you actually watched any of their media? About fifty per cent of it consists of them slaughtering each other with primitive weapons. That’s what they call ‘entertainment’. And then they just beam it out into the galaxy, for anyone to see. They’re not even ashamed of it.”
“Eww, gross.”
“Wait – it gets worse. They had some kind of disagreement, about seventy-five of their orbital periods ago, and ended up initiating nuclear fission events, right in the middle of two of their big population centers. Oh, some beings will tell you it was an accident, but --”
“You think they did it deliberately? Oh my Zorg, I think I’m going to be sick.”
“You see? And what have I always told you about bad neighborhoods?”
“You don’t slow down, you don’t roll down the force fields, you keep the principal airlock doors sealed.”
“Right. Now, swing the sail around. We’re getting out of here.”
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There are indeed a few aliens in Riddick, such as the elementals, ya? And I thought there were some non-human necromongers?
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LOL this made my day, thank you 
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I understood it as there being several sub species of human, due to living on very different planets. Riddick’s species came from a heavy gravity world I think, and even the elementals are just humans with some fancy tricks. Same for the mongers. There’s certainly plenty of native wildlife in the movies but nothing particularly intelligent.
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Except for, well, Riddick. And the Elemental. And those tiger thingies. And those murderous bat thingies in Pitch Black. And those other murderous wolf and lungfish thingies in Riddick. Yup, no aliens at all.
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By the way, the clickbait headline really isn’t supported by the paper. It was basically saying that the object was lighter than expected and more effected by solar wind.
Ummm… From the paper:
“We discuss the possible origins of such an object including the possibility that it might be a lightsail of artificial origin.”
“Considering an artificial origin, one possibility is that ‘Oumuamua is a lightsail, floating in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment .”
“Alternatively, a more exotic scenario is that ‘Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.”
etc.
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what if it were really, really small
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Then it wouldn’t have enough reaction mass to do a deceleration burn.
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