PBS Space Time
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2018–2021
17:32 · 790K views · Nov 21, 2018
PBS Space Time examines the interstellar object 'Oumuamua and the popular theories about it, including the light-sail hypothesis. It argues that a natural rock is the likeliest explanation.
HN recommends it as a sober analysis of 'Oumuamua theories that counters the alien-spacecraft claims.
4 comments from Hacker News
And I really recommend this PBS Space Time Video: this video He makes excellent points that given historical data, a mm thin solar sail really shouldn't be our first conclusion instead of a collection of rocks that broke apart and refused back together (think of a combination of Shoemaker-Levy and Ultima Thule). And given the short length of time we've been observing space, chances of one of the first things we see enter our solar system be a tumbling, solar sail would mean that interstellar space is chock full of wildly tumbling solar sails! We need to take base rates for probability into account and realize that since most of the stuff we've seen in space is just rocks and most of our models predict just rocks in interstellar space, the probability of it being anything other than just a rock is very low. This whole media obsession with Avi Loeb definitely feels like an example of news organization paying too much attention to the institution an academic works at and not how the rest of their field thinks about their ideas.
The PBS Space Time video series, written and hosted by Lehman College astrophysicist Matthew O’Dowd, has a nice analysis of popular 'Oumuamua theories: "'Oumuamua Is Not Aliens" this video
If you like videos, PBS Space Time published one recently about the paper that tests the light sail hypothesis: this video
For me it went into the opposite direction after listening to 'omuamua is not aliens' video [1]. I think Dr. Loeb, contrary to what he says, is exploiting this a bit for some personal gain and fame. [1]: this video