A strangely shaped visitor, the first known object to enter the solar system from interstellar space was picked up and tracked by astronomers last October . The prosaically named 1l/2017 U1. was rapidly re- christened Oumuamua, a Hawaiian name in recognition of its discovery at the Haleakala observatory on that island. Although not visible , even through a powerful telescope, the sine curve of its light emission reveals it to be elongated and rotating on its long axis. Illario Vernelli, founder and administrator of the original Jeff Hawke website in Italy, has pointed out an uncanny resemblance between the discovery of Oumuamua and the opening sequence of the Hawke story OUT OF TOUCH, where an exploration party from Earth exploring the Saturn system, discovered a mysterious elongated object hiding in the ring system of the giant planet. It turns out to be an alien artifact, a craft of strange design and even stranger composition, as it’s made from anti-matter. Oumuamua itself, did not pass near to Saturn as it dipped into the Solar system ecliptic at a very steep 33degrees, entering inside the orbit of Mercury , dipping past that of the Earth and exiting again in the space between our world and Mars.
Its appearance also resonated strongly with the openIng sequence of Arthur C Clark’s RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA and although there was initial speculation about the possibility of Oumuamua being an alien craft, with even such eminent voices as those of Steven Hawking commenting on this distant possibility, subsequent analysis has revealed it to be a rock, albeit an interesting one. The size of its hyperbolic orbit shows it to be a visitor, not from the Oort Cloud but from interstellar space and thus , originally from another star system .
The complete OUT OF TOUCH story can be found in JEFF HAWKE COSMOS vol5 no2 and BBC’s SKY AT NIGHT devoted its January 2018 programme to Oumuamua which us still available on Iplayer. Skipper Prossitt
In ‘Space Notes’ for JHC Vol.10 No.3, I said that the discovery had provided the first example of an interstellar comet like the one in my most successful short story, ‘The Comet, the Cairn and the Capsule’. Not long afterwards it was decided that the object was more asteroid than comet, and there were thoughts that it might even be a starship, though listening watches picked up no signals from it (Ian Sample, ‘Is ‘Oumuamua an alien spacecraft? Initial scans show no signs of technology’, The Guardian, 14 December 2017). . Funnily enough my first professional sale in 1967 was of a story called ‘Derelict’ about a derelict starship entering the Solar System; it wasn’t published till 1974 but then got a Nebula recommendation.
It now seems that such objects could be passing undetected through the Solar System in large numbers, possibly even in thousands (Matt Williams, ‘The Solar System Probably Has Thousands of Captured Interstellar Asteroids’, Universe Today, 7th February 2018), In that case they could come from almost any direction – which makes it highly remarkable that the first one we’ve detected should have come from near Vega, very close to the Apex of the Sun’s Way through interstellar space, and have been travelling at approximately 12 miles per second, very close to the Sun’s velocity with respect to the interstellar medium.
That raises three possibilities, and it’s hard to know which is least likely. (1) Oumuamua’s speed and direction are both coincidences, though either would be striking on its own; (2) Oumuamua was in effect lying in wait for us, directly in our path and at rest with respect to the surrounding medium; (3) like the signals in Gregory Benford’s novel “Timescape”, Oumuamua is from the future.
As I mentioned, there’s a proposal for a ‘Project Lyra’ to send a space probe in pursuit of Oumuamua as it recedes from us. I really think we should!