Exactly 60 years ago, the first earthling went into space. And since then we have been tormented by one of the main questions of life: are we alone in the universe?
And finally, a person was found who knows the answer to this question.
This is Professor Abraham Loeb – one of the most famous astronomers on the planet, former Dean of the Astronomy Department of Harvard University.
In January, he put his reputation on the line, and the scientific community on the ears, openly declaring the existence of a highly developed alien civilization. The proof, in his opinion, may be the asteroid Oumuamua, which may not be an asteroid at all, but an artificial object!
The astrophysicist sets out his arguments in the book “Extraterrestrial. The first sign of intelligent life outside the Earth. ” Now it is being translated into Russian by the publishing house AST.
For the first time, Professor Loeb gave an interview to the Russian media within the framework of the Famous Travelers Club program, a joint project of the Russian Geographical Society and Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda (97.2 FM).
Throw at the AMBRAZURA
– Professor, are we so alone in the universe?
– Not. It would be too presumptuous to think so. Today we know that there are stars like the Sun, around which planets of approximately the same size as the Earth revolve, and are approximately the same distance from the star. This means that they can have water and life in the form we are accustomed to. There are billions of galaxies like the Milky Way. So it is unlikely that under the same conditions as us, there will be different results somewhere. By the way, most of the planets appeared billions of years before our Sun. So it is likely that there were civilizations in the Universe that had already died, but sent satellites into space. We will no longer be able to talk with these civilizations, but we will be able to carry out a kind of archaeological excavations in space in order to find their traces.
– You risked your scientific reputation by calling Oumuamua an artificial object …
– For me, this was the main question that science must answer to mankind, and I suggest at least trying to do this. If Oumuamua is indeed an artificially created object, then this will refute the thesis of our loneliness in the Universe and prove that there are or were other technological cultures from which we can learn a lot and adopt a lot, saving time.
Perhaps we should also study why these cultures died, understand how we can save our planet and our civilization, learn to use resources in a different way, not waste them on conflicts. After all, it all loses its meaning on the scale of the Universe. Perhaps we will receive a call that will wake us up, force us to change our behavior …
Due to the likely grandiose consequences, we simply cannot ignore the possibility of Oumuamua's alien origin. It does not look like any comet or other asteroids, this is clearly something else. Even those who have tried to explain its natural origin admit that they have never seen anything like it before …
So yes, I'm ready to sacrifice my reputation for the sake of starting scientific discussions on the options that there are artificial bodies in space that were not created by us! The question concerns the future of all mankind, it is much more important than my own.
When I was 17 years old, I was called up for military service in the Israel Defense Forces, in the ranks of the airborne troops. In the course of a young soldier, we were taught to close the enemy embrasure with ourselves in order to give others the opportunity to move forward. All my books, all my publications on this topic are an opportunity to give the young generation to freely discuss the question of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations.
I insist on a comprehensive study of phenomena that remain unexplained, contrary to logic. Firstly, it is beautiful, it makes science fascinating and not boring.
But what do we see in reality? Oumuamua, an object unlike anything else, mysterious, does not arouse any interest among scientists! They simply do not pay attention to him, because he takes them out of their comfort zone.
But if we recall the history of physics, then 100 years ago quantum theory was discovered in this way, because it was like nothing else. Even Albert Einstein was deluded into thinking she was wrong. Nature always teaches us something new. You can't skip her lessons!
FANTASTIC PREDICTION
– If this is an artificially created object, what is its purpose?
– We do not know. Maybe it's a ship, or some kind of road sign for other alien ships, or a telecommunications station, or maybe a spy ship. But there are questions regarding this version, since it took about 10 thousand years for the passage of the Oumuamua solar system, and we technologically began to develop rapidly only about a century ago. That is, quite recently, alien civilizations simply could not be interested.
But it is possible that he was sent simply as a scientific scout to search for living beings on other planets …
– Oumuamua flew far away, and we will not be able to investigate him anymore?
– Unfortunately no. Now it is so far from Earth that it is millions of times less clear and less distinguishable for our telescopes. But in the future we will be able to detect such objects. The Pan-STARRS telescope saw Oumuamua just three years after commissioning. Before that, no device was able to detect an object with dimensions and characteristics like Oumuamua's. An even more sensitive telescope in Chile is due to start working in three years. And we can send a probe with a camera to similar objects. And a photograph is worth more than a thousand words. Or 66 thousand words – that's exactly the number of them in my book.
It is important to continue to collect and research the information already received. Although you can do nothing of this, but only repeat: “Let's forget, it was just a stone.” But how then will we differ from those scientists who did not agree to look through the telescope of Galileo, who claimed that the Earth revolves around the Sun? The result is known: Galileo was under arrest, everyone ignored his theory, and the Earth … and continued to revolve around the Sun. Reality doesn't matter what we think about it, it just exists.
– An amazing coincidence: Arthur Clarke, in his novel “Date with Rama”, in fact, predicted the appearance of Oumuamua back in 1973 (see “Quote from the classic” – Ed.). Mystic?
– Honestly, I found out about this book by Clark when my … The mysticism is different: we spend billions on research, for example, gravitational waves. Or dark matter, which has not yet been found at all … But the search for other civilizations – a thousand times less. The question arises: why spend so much money on something that will not have any impact on our daily life?
– In general, are we looking for other civilizations correctly?
– Not really. It is necessary to send probes for filming every new object that has flown to us from outside the solar system. Yes, most of them are likely to be asteroids or comets. But there may be those that are created by alien intelligence. It's like finding a plastic bottle on the seashore among rocks and sand. But you need to get as close as possible to this “bottle” and study it.
So far, scientists do not do this, since before Oumuamua did not know that bodies from other systems can visit the solar system. Today, a comprehensive study of each new object emerging from another star system in ours is a reasonable step in the search for such “plastic bottles”.
“THE EARTH'S LEAVE THEMSELVES LIKE MY WIFE'S GIRLS”
– What do you think, did aliens come to us? Or maybe they are already among us?
– I do not think that we are so interesting to them that they come to visit us. Civilizations like ours existed in great numbers billions of years ago. We are like an ant in a huge field in which many other ants have lived and live.
We have a very developed conceit. Studying astronomy, I realized that the Universe is so large and voluminous that the Earth is just a grain of sand. We should be more modest, if only because compared to the hundreds of millions of years that the Universe has existed, the age of humanity is expressed in an almost insignificant number of units of time. In general, we behave like friends of my wife: when I met her, they all sat and waited for the prince on a white horse. To think that we are so interesting that someone will fly to us from another planet, arrogantly, to put it mildly …
By the way, most of the planets are much smaller than our Sun, and they receive rays of the infrared spectrum. So if there are living beings there, then they see everything in infrared radiation. It turns out that we have nothing to offer tourists from other planets: they are used to dark red grass, while ours is green. So they don't fly to visit us. On Earth, only shrimp have infrared vision, which is probably why they have eyes like aliens.
– Is this a joke?
– Understand how you want. During the pandemic, another idea came to my mind: different cultures are isolated in peculiar cocoons, which contain everything that is necessary for existence. But this does not mean that we cannot know anything about our neighbors without contacting them. They are throwing away waste! It's like reporters digging through trash cans outside the homes of stars. So we can learn a lot of interesting things by digging into what other civilizations are throwing into outer space.
– So Oumuamua may turn out to be commonplace … rubbish of another civilization?
– Or a fragment of a spaceship. Or is it still a ship – who knows now … I repeat, we, unfortunately, lost time …
– When can we expect your book in Russia?
– It has already been published in 23 languages and will be published in Russian thanks to the publishing house AST in September. It is very important for me that she appears in Russia. Your science has played an important role in my life. A favorite book in his youth was “Relativistic Astrophysics” by Yakov Zeldovich. I learned it by heart. Lev Landau, Evgeny Lifshits, Iosif Shklovsky – their works are superbly written, full of deep content, in contrast to what has been published in the West.
PRIVATE BUSSINESS
Abraham LEB is Professor and Dean of the Astronomy Department at Harvard University from 2011 to 2020. He is currently Director of the Institute for Theory and Computing of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Member of the American Physical Society, the International Academy of Astronautics, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Chairman of the Council on Physics and Astronomy of the National American Academies, Adviser to the President of the United States on Science and Technology. He has written eight scientific books and about 800 articles on astrophysics and cosmology. Time magazine has named Loeb as one of the 25 most influential experts in the study of extraterrestrial space.
REFERENCE “KP”
A journey of 45 million years
The asteroid Oumuamua was discovered in 2017 by the Hawaiian Observatory, and she gave him the name, which translated means “envoy from afar” or “scout”. It is the first ever recorded interstellar object passing through the solar system. According to one version, it started from the Vega star system in the constellation Lyra about 45 million years ago.
In his book, Professor Loeb argues for the artificial origin of the asteroid.
Object shape. Most comets and asteroids have a spherical structure. In contrast, Oumuamua is very elongated and long. It is assumed to be in the shape of a cigar about a kilometer long.
Extraordinary brightness. Oumuamua's surface reflects 10 times more sunlight than a normal asteroid, which means it is most likely not made of rock.
A strange movement. Before entering the solar system, he actually stood still, as if waiting for a command. Then he began to move – this behavior is not typical for natural objects. Moreover, the “messenger” periodically accelerated, as if turning on the engines. Loeb attributes these speed changes to the presence of a solar sail, which, when unfolded, uses the energy of the Sun to move.
Unfortunately, we missed all the moments to study Oumuamua – now he is leaving the solar system at a speed that is inaccessible to our spacecraft.
QUOTE CLASSIC
“To go around the Sun and again go into the unknown”
Arthur Clarke. “Appointment with Rama”. An excerpt from a science fiction novel written half a century ago:
“Number 31/439 was not at all an ordinary asteroid, running in an elliptical orbit and repeating it with the precision of a clockwork every few years. He turned out to be a lone interstellar wanderer who visited the solar system for the first and last time, and moved so rapidly that not even the gravitational field of the sun was able to take him prisoner. Having pierced the orbits of Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury and continuously gaining speed, he had to eventually go around the Sun and again go into the unknown.
Number 31/439 was named Rama …
The body was a cylinder of such a perfect geometric shape, as if it had been carved on a lathe – a gigantic machine, the headstock of which was spaced fifty kilometers apart. Both ends of the cylinder were completely flat, only in the center of one of them was some kind of small structure towered: the diameter of the cylinder was twenty kilometers …
For a monolithic cylinder of this size, the mass turned out to be extremely small. This no longer surprised anyone: an artificial body should be hollow.
The event, which they had long hoped for, which they had long feared, finally happened. Mankind, apparently, was to receive the first guests from the stars. “
