An article said this is the 3rd interstellar object detected. Are we detecting more interstellar visitors because they are getting more common, or have our techniques improved over the last few years?
These things are only a mile or two wide and at the distance of Jupiter. They require extremely sensitive and high-resolution telescopes to detect. There are probably many more of them that are smaller and further.
Entirely the second. When Vera Rubin starts reporting its regular scans this will be made very clear because we'll probably find 10+ interstellar objects per year at minimum.
I doubt they're serious but some wackos thought Oumuamua was an alien probe due to its unusual shape, and since this new interstellar object is arriving shortly after Oumuamua has left it must be the mothership.
I feel like it's more of a meme than a serious thing for most people.
Yes, in this case the telescope (array) is composed of many elements. The scopes themselves are very sensitive (so they can detect minute amounts of photons) and the combined array gives a much higher resolution (ability to see things that are very small very far away).
astronomy technology has been improving rapidly and the VLT is one of the best implementations for this kind of problem right now.
An easy home experiment is to get a gas flame, like in the stovetop that is blue and sprink a little of table salt. The important part is the sodium that gives the flame a very strong yellow color.
Salts without sodium give other colors. IIRC cooper gives a green color. This is used by firecrackers makers to get nice colors, and also in the chemistry lab to detect the composition of some salts.
After studding this king of stuff for a few centuries, we have a very good idea of how each element changes the color of the flame, or absorbs some colors of the light that pass trough the mist.
An article said this is the 3rd interstellar object detected. Are we detecting more interstellar visitors because they are getting more common, or have our techniques improved over the last few years?
These things are only a mile or two wide and at the distance of Jupiter. They require extremely sensitive and high-resolution telescopes to detect. There are probably many more of them that are smaller and further.
Entirely the second. When Vera Rubin starts reporting its regular scans this will be made very clear because we'll probably find 10+ interstellar objects per year at minimum.
We launched a new telescope, in 2017 IIRC, that can detect them.
Our techniques have improved.
So is it a spaceship or not?
It is never aliens.
Why would do think it would be a spaceship?
I doubt they're serious but some wackos thought Oumuamua was an alien probe due to its unusual shape, and since this new interstellar object is arriving shortly after Oumuamua has left it must be the mothership.
I feel like it's more of a meme than a serious thing for most people.
It wasn’t a wacko theory at first. The wackos are the people who still believed it even after evidence emerged to the contrary.
The Ramans do everything in threes.
This is a report about the volatile composition of interstellar objects (ISOs) passing through the Solar System.
So telescopes can see nickel being spread at .125g/mile from 200M miles away?
Yes, in this case the telescope (array) is composed of many elements. The scopes themselves are very sensitive (so they can detect minute amounts of photons) and the combined array gives a much higher resolution (ability to see things that are very small very far away).
astronomy technology has been improving rapidly and the VLT is one of the best implementations for this kind of problem right now.
An easy home experiment is to get a gas flame, like in the stovetop that is blue and sprink a little of table salt. The important part is the sodium that gives the flame a very strong yellow color.
Salts without sodium give other colors. IIRC cooper gives a green color. This is used by firecrackers makers to get nice colors, and also in the chemistry lab to detect the composition of some salts.
After studding this king of stuff for a few centuries, we have a very good idea of how each element changes the color of the flame, or absorbs some colors of the light that pass trough the mist.
I have a 135-year-old book by Camille Flammarion that explains how astronomers were able to analyze the content of stars with spectroscopy.
To further the reading...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopy
In the same sense that a weather radar can "see" mist dozens of miles away, yes
There is so much more information available in the electromagnetic spectrum than just the narrow range a human eye can see
my favourite today was this one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00224...
measuring pressure with line broadening!?!