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Old 12-13-2017, 07:01 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tbzep
99.999% unlikely. However, it takes only a few keystrokes to receive and study possible radio emissions, so why not take a peek?
Indeed--also, some astronomers think that such "interstellar interlopers" may be more common, and may pass (undetected) through our solar system, than has been thought up to now. (Small, dark objects that never pass closer to the Sun than, say, Saturn, might never be seen; even closer solar encounters might go unnoticed if they occurred sunward of the Earth [when Comet Halley transited the Sun's disc during its 1910 apparition, its nucleus--which is several times larger than Oumuamua--wasn't seen at all].) In addition:

Proposed missions to Oumuamua have been formulated. Here (see: http://danielmarin.naukas.com/2017/...%CA%BBoumuamua/ ) is a proposal for an SLS-launched (SpaceX’s BFR could also do it) probe that could reach Oumuamua. The text is in Portuguese (the proposal is from Brazil), but FreeTranslation www.freetranslation.com can translate it into English. Such a probe could also--in principle (although spacecraft longevity would be an issue)--be sent to another star, in which case a laser communication system could be used instead of the "baseline" 1-meter dish antenna.
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