The known astronomy shock: I don't like it at all.

Avi Loeb, 56, is head of the astronomy department at Harvard University and has published more than 700 works on astrosical phenomena. His areas of interest include black holes and the birth of the first stars in the universe. Recently, Loeb has focused on the possible existence of intelligent life outside our planet, a topic on which he is writing an article.

Professor Loeb, do you have a favorite alien?

To be honest, I don't personally like science fiction. I have a problem with the fact that I'm often violated by the laws of mourning. In those cases, I cannot enjoy aesthetic experience. If you don't like aliens, why are you exploring the issue of alien life?

Because it's one of the really big questions. I was always interested, even as a child. And the most fundamental of all questions is: Are we alone?

Why do you think the issue is so fundamental?

If at some point we encountered other intelligent beings, it would radically change our view of our importance in the great scheme of things. Besides, alien intelligence can greatly increase our knowledge. Learning from them would improve our understanding of the world. It could be a help as if someone from the Middle Ages had an idea of the world in the 21st century.

Have the prospects of the match improved with the “foreign” today compared to early times?

We live at a special time. We've only discovered one thing in recent years, how life can be spread in our galaxy. Capler's satellite taught us that one in four stars has a planet similar to the Earth with favourable temperatures for life. And secondly, today we have the technology needed to answer the question of whether we are alone or not.

If we assume that an alien civilization has truly been discovered, how important would this be in comparison with other important discoveries in human history?

I think it would be the biggest discovery. If you think of people's history, the prospect has changed as we have evolved from one individual to one family, one S, one place, and finally we have found other continents with people living there. If we could find other beings across Earth, it would be the biggest step ever.

 Do you think there will be a moment when we get an intelligent signal from space, and suddenly everything will be different?

I can't tell you what this is gonna be like. But it will be shocking. Because we are biased by our experiences. We imagine that other beings are similar to us. But perhaps they are radically different. For example, it is quite possible that we will not come face - to - face with the very forms of life but only in their objects. Anyway, we're not designed for inter-air travel ourselves. The only reason astronauts survive in space is because they're under Earth's magnetic field protection. Even when you travel to Mars, cosmic rays will become a major problem.

So E.T. It's just a robot sent from aliens?

Why not? Or aliens can, rather than travel themselves, send 3-D printers that can then print artifacts, even living organisms, using material found in other heavenly organs.

 Do you think the big moment of first contact will happen throughout your life?

My assumption is that we will first discover some technological and not necessarily biological waste.

 In what form? Spaceship? Garbage?

Exactly. Most civilizations can be very short in length. In other words: I'm afraid they don't take good care of their planet and eventually destroy themselves by nuclear wars, by climate interventions, by environmental destruction...

Would astronomers like historians in the inner galaxy be rebuilding lost high - tech cultures from ruins?

That's why I call astronomy “archeology”.

In the Astrophysical Journal Letters, you recently state that the first aliens may already have arrived.

Yeah. On October 19, 2017, the PanSTARRS telescope in Hawaii discovered an unusual object in heaven. It was moving so fast that it should have originated from a country beyond our solar system, making it the first visitor from the outer space we know about. He was baptized under the name “Oumua”.

Is it surprising to find an asteroid going through the galaxy and finally following our way?

Pretty amazing, really. Ten years ago, prior to the liquidation of the PanSTARRS, I counted with two colleagues if this instrument was able to find any artifacts from outer space. Claiming that such objects originate from solar systems similar to ours, we concluded that the probability is somewhere between 1: 100 and 1: 100,000.

Is Oumuawa supposed to not even exist?

Right. In addition, it is highly mysterious in other ways. Its lighting changes dramatically, giving it a very strange shape. A sphere will always reflect the same amount of light. Only a disk or a body in the form of a cigarette could turn sides, signaling light.

But just because it's strange in shape doesn't mean Oumua is a spaceship.

I agree. But the more we found out about this object, the more strange it was. In June, an article was published in Nature magazine that described the orbit of oumua. It is very different from an orbit formed only by the gravitational field of the sun.

 What conclusion does this draw?

There's been some additional forces operating on Oumua. For example, if it was a comet, it could have let out gas while urinating after the sun. That would cause a twist like a rocket. However, a considerable portion of its mass would have evaporated by about 10 percent.

 Is it unusual for a comet?

Not necessarily. But we should have seen these gases. Rather, even after an intense investigation, the comet's tail was not discovered. And there's something else that's really surprising: Oumua's rotation must have changed in gas extraction, but even that effect was not noticed.

The conclusion?

I began to ask if there could be another force operating in Oumua. And all I can think about is the pressure of sunlight.

Is the force strong enough to have a visible effect on such a body?

This is the critical point. The power of solar radiation is relatively weak. It can only have a visible effect if Oumuawa is a very thin object.

What does a very thin “=x1> mean?

Less than a quarter thick.

How could something like that happen? It is hard to imagine how a giant “puro” could be formed, much less a thin religion.

I can't imagine that. I would be grateful if someone came to make a suggestion. But since there's no explanation that there were some additional forces operating in the Oumuawa.

For example, if it was a comet, it could have let out gas while urinating after the sun. That would cause a twist like a rocket. However, a considerable portion of its mass would have evaporated by about 10 percent. Is it unusual for a comet?

That sounds like a wild suggestion. If the first body outside our solar system is an object, it would lead to the conclusion that such objects may be far more common than natural asteroids or comets. Could interstellar space be just a basket of giant garbage filled with the remains of foreign civilizations?

You're addressing an important point here. We've worked it out: If Oumuawau is an odd object, each solar system will have to produce millions of these objects. Unless it's a coincidence. This could be a target mission.

 You mean Oumuamua is an investigation of the active space and spying on us? I'm just saying it's an opportunity.

I follow the logic of a detective, and Sherlock Holmes said: “if you have ruled out inefficiency, then what remains is the truth, however impossible it may seem to”.

 It is not exactly common for a respected scientist to make such suggestions. How did other scientists react?

Most of them agree that Oumuawa is very strange. But still, they are reluctant to say it could be an artificial object.

Speculating around “strangers” is a beautiful exotic idea. You might also say that magic is not involved or any divine creator.

Not at all. The thought of distant civilizations is not speculation. We know they exist, so at least one vital form has developed advanced technology. And we know there are conditions similar to those on Earth in a quarter of all planetary systems around other stars. Why, then, can't there be intelligent beings anywhere else? I follow what I call the principle of cosmic modesty. We humans tend to think of themselves as something special, but history has repeatedly shown that this is an illusion. We thought the earth was at the center of the universe, but it revolves around the sun, which revolves around the center of our galaxy, which is just one of billions of galaxies in the universe. The principle of cosmic modesty requires that we assume that we are nothing special from a biological standpoint. And if there are other intelligent beings there, the odds are that they are much more technologically advanced than we are.

Some people accused you of trying to draw attention to your spacecraft hypothesis.

This is nonsense. I didn't even make a press release for our theory. If I had been interested in attracting attention, I would have done it in time. But it wasn't. My only motivation is to think of the world. I don't care what people think.

Could that be why you think Oumua could be: a floating boat” because you're working on one as part of the Breakthhough Starshot project?

I don't deny that my imagination is marked by what I know. Of course my ideas are influenced by what I'm working on, but that's true of everyone.

What's the Braakthhthrow Starshot project about?

Everything was fine when Yuri Milner, an entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, came to my office in May 2015 and asked if I would be willing to run a project to send an investigation to the nearest star, as it must reach within our lifetime.

That sounds pretty absurd. A rocket would take tens of thousands of years to reach our closest neighbour, Proxima Centauri.

I told Yuri I should think about it. Proxima Centaur is four light years from Earth. To reach it for 20 years, an investigation would have to travel to a fifth of the speed of light. After six months, I had a clear idea of the concept.

What is it?

One thing was clear: I had to exclude any kind of push with probe fuel on board. Even with plutonium, energy density is too low to achieve such speed. This is why a floating light, accelerated by a powerful laser from Earth, seemed to be the only possible way. The idea is to speed up the investigation with a 100-gawaat laser beam in a few minutes. After five times as far away as the moon, it will have reached a fifth of the speed of light.

If the probe is too small and too light.

Yeah. Plan a cargo of about a gram. The probe needs a camera, and also a navigation and a communication device. Electronic miniaturization allows us to accept everything.

The laser must be extremely powerful. Is there no danger that your mini-son will disappear once hit by a ray?

To prevent this from happening, we need material that almost completely reflects laser light. It must be a perfect mirror that absorbs less than 1 in 100,000 light. Such material exists.

Your plan calls for the continuation of the investigation even when it is a million miles from Earth. Is it possible to focus laser lights with such accuracy?

Yes, it is. Our concept is to install many infrared small lasers on a square - meter surface. This will allow us to focus the rays up to about five times the distance from the moon. If we could focus radiation at a larger distance, we could use less powerful lasers, because then we would speed up the investigation for a longer period of time.

Twenty years later, if the probe really reaches its destination, it should take photos and send them back to Earth. But the broadcaster on board is unlikely to be more powerful than he is on a normal mobile phone. Is it enough to transmit a signal in four years?

Traveling through such a distance, the radio signal will spread to more surfaces than the size of earth's orbit around the sun. So the investigation should only target the sun and Earth will be within the trace of signaling. However, we will need a large signal receiver on Earth.

Let's assume all of this really works and you get a picture of Proxima Centauri once in 2050 or later. Is such a picture worth $10 billion?

It will be possible to send many probes into space once the launch system is built, because the expensive part is laser-ray infrastructure. The probes themselves will be relatively free. Moreover, the Starshot project has nothing to do with photograss itself. It's about showing that we can leave the solar system. This will open the door to a completely new treatment of space exploration.

 Can you also send out such an investigation after Oumuawa to see if it really has a “-warming”?

Yeah, that's possible. Oumourua is moving too fast for a rocket, but with a laser driven it would be possible to achieve, even at a 10 percent speed of light.

However, it seems unlikely that it will ever happen. Is there another way to find out if there is any truth to your Oumua hypothesis?

Absolutely. In a few years, the large sinoptic survey telescope will take effect, successor to the PanSTARRS. If objects like O'Oumua are randomly distributed in space, this instrument should see thousands of them, and we would be able to study them more fully. Plus, heavenly bodies of distant origin are likely already in orbit within our solar system. The gravitational fields of the sun and Jupiter act as a fishing net that can catch bodies from outer space.

Can many internal asteroids be identified within the solar system?

Yeah. Because they come from arbitrary directions, their orbits are likely inclined regarding the planetary orbit plan. We even identical some of the candidates.

And now would you like to investigate them more closely?

Yes, I see this as a completely new way of studying remote planetary systems. It's like a dinner where some guests come from a distant place. Just interviewing mysar, you can learn a lot about this place without having to pay the plane and get there. When it comes to "Oumourua," we were just informed of it after the customer had already left and disappeared. As for the next visitor, we will study him soon and more thoroughly.

To change the perspective for a moment: If there's really a very advanced civilization somewhere there, will they learn that Privacy Terms X 1/10/2019 “The teaching of parallel civilizations is not speculation, but an answer already has some intelligent beings on planet Earth?

If this civilization is as technically advanced as we are, they should be able to detect our radio signals from a distance of tens of light years.

Would it be desirable to contact them? This depends on how optimistic you are about their intentions. If such beings are peaceful, we can learn much from them.

The historical event here on Earth, which is perhaps closest to the arrival of the foreign “” was the landing of Christopher Columbus in America. For people living there, this event was a disaster.

I agree. Therefore, the best thing to do is to be heard first. Once we find out a signal, we can figure out what to do.

Professor Loeb, thank you for this interview.

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