by Abraham Loeb March 4, 2019 (scientificamerican.com)
• The human species is not particularly smart. We fight among ourselves in “lose-lose” situations; we do not promote long-term solutions over short-term fixes; and we have been broadcasting our existence to the galaxy with radio waves for over a century without worrying whether about whether there are any predators or competitors in outer space.
• Mainstream scientists box themselves in under an arrogant presumption that extraterrestrials and alien artifacts do not exist, and go from there. They can only conceive of a civilization or a technology that is based upon our own environment, geology and technology. The human race as a whole suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which those with mediocre abilities insist that they’re unusually talented or smart.
• The only way that our species will mature is to get off this planet and see what’s out there. When an artefact such as Oumuamua passes through our solar system, we need to observe it with an open mind. Could it be technological debris from another civilization? We need to get past the “giggle factor” to explore the unexpected.
• We can only hope that we have not become the laughingstock of our galactic neighborhood by now. But even if we have, we can still get our act together and do better. We should find out first who is on our street by searching with our best telescopes for unusual electromagnetic flashes, industrial pollution of planetary atmospheres, artificial light or heat, artificial space debris or something completely unexpected.
• [Editor’s Note] Accolades to Harvard Professor Avi Loeb (pictured above) for breaking away from mainstream scientists’ intellectual cul-de-sac. Loeb either knows more than he’s letting on, or has great intuition about the strange cigar-shaped “asteroid”, Oumuamua, that passed through our solar system in 2017 with very unusual transit properties. In a recent ExoNews article, “Alliance War Against Deep State – Major Updates Coming”, Corey Goode recounts how he was debriefed on a U.S. Air Force secret space program mission where astronauts entered, investigated, and video recorded the ancient derelict spaceship months before it was detected moving through our solar system. Corey points out that Linda Moulton Howe has now brought forward two military men who have independent knowledge of this USAF-SSP Oumuamua mission, confirming exactly what Corey first revealed.
It is unclear how many intelligent civilizations have arisen in the Milky Way galaxy so far, but if some have, a pressing question comes to mind: were they or are they more intelligent than we are?
When reading the morning newspaper, it is difficult to avoid the thought that our own intelligence bar is not particularly high nor difficult to surpass. We fight among ourselves in “lose-lose” situations; we do not promote long-term solutions over short-term fixes; and we have been broadcasting our existence to the galaxy with radio waves for over a century without worrying whether about whether there are any predators or competitors in outer space. (If it’s the latter, they might have been ignoring us because we appear so incompetent.)
If other civilizations do exist, one key in becoming aware of them is whether we are intelligent enough to adequately interpret their signals or to identify a piece of their technology if it should appear in our solar system. One fact is clear: if we assign a zero prior probability for such evidence coming our way, as some scientists did in the case of ‘Oumuamua by invoking the principle “it’s never aliens,” we will indeed never find any. We will be like ostriches burying our heads in the sand.
In fact, this attitude may be one sign that our intelligence isn’t very impressive—that the human race as a whole suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which those with mediocre abilities insist that they’re unusually talented or smart.
How can our civilization mature? The same way kids do: by leaving home, going out into the neighborhood, meeting others and comparing notes with them. In other words, we can develop a balanced perspective on our current technological accomplishments by engaging in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Since our own technological development accelerates exponentially with an e-folding time of a few years, it is difficult to imagine what a much more advanced technology crafted by a civilization that had lived for a cosmic timescale—billions of such e-folding times—would look like.
As natural as this suggestion to search might seem, however it is evident that SETI faces a hostile mainstream culture in astronomy. The simple proposal to consider the possibility that ‘Oumumua is technological debris as an explanation for its unusual properties, for example was met with controversy on social media.
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On January 16, the head of Harvard University’s astronomy department, Prof. Abraham Loeb, gave an interview where he defended his controversial paper that the interstellar object detected by a Hawaii based telescope on October 19, 2017, and named “Oumuamua”, was a spacecraft of some kind. While astronomers continue to debate the scant scientific data gleaned from telescopes to determine Oumuamua’s origins and nature, a whistleblower/insider’s report of an alleged covert space mission to Oumuamua that acquired much scientific data after landing on it is being ignored.
While astronomers might be forgiven for ignoring insider/whistleblower reports of covert missions to artifacts in the solar system due to a lack of corroborating scientific data, political scientists interested in space affairs, which falls under the rubrics of “astropolitics” or “exopolitics”, do not have such a luxury. Insiders/whistleblowers provide a rare glimpse into the rarified world of highly classified compartmentalized projects and therefore their claims need to be investigated since corroborating evidence may be absent due to the classification process, rather than being non-existent. If found to be credible insider/whistleblower claims need to be analyzed with regard to available scientific data as outlined in a 2014 paper published in the Astropolitics Journal.
Before examining the alleged covert mission that landed on Oumuamau, it’s worth reviewing what astronomers have said about it to date.
In a TED talk published on July 19, 2018, the astrobiologist, Dr. Karen J. Meech, discussed what was known about Oumuamua which was given the formal designation of 1I/2017 U1. She explained the excitement of astronomers who had long awaited the arrival of the first object from another solar system. They initially gave it the informal name of Rama, after the derelict spacecraft depicted in Arthur C. Clark’s 1973 novel, Rendezvous with Rama that was spotted after passing close by the Earth.
Meech explained in her TED talk that this was not deemed suitable. As will be later explained, the name Rama was in fact very appropriate given how a secret space program organized a landing mission.
Given that the interstellar object was discovered from the Pan-STARRS telescope on Haleakala Observatory on the Hawaiian island of Maui, two Hawaii culture experts were consulted. They named it Oumuamua – Hawaiian for “scout or messenger from distant past reaching out to us”. The images taken by the Hubble and Pan-STARRS telescopes were quite faint, so not much could be learned about Oumuamua’s geometry and composition.
Nevertheless, the initial artist depiction was of it being a long-cigar shaped object that was turning and rolling along its interstellar orbital path as though violently ejected from some distant stellar event that occurred in the remote past.
What really attracted scientific attention was when Oumuamua accelerated as it approached the sun according to data provided by the Hubble telescope in June 2018.
While acceleration is normal for comets that have long icy tails which ignite thereby propelling the comet forward, Oumuamua was no comet. Somehow the sun’s solar energy appeared to be accelerating Oumuamua.
This led to Prof. Loeb and his colleague from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Dr. Shmuel Bialy, speculating that Oumuamua may have contained a solar sail and was therefore being charged up and accelerating as it received the solar energy. They presented their conjecture in a paper titled, “Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain Oumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration?” and wrote:
Considering an artificial origin, one possibility is that ‘Oumuamua is a lightsail, floating in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment… The lightsail technology might be abundantly used for transportation of cargo between planets … or between stars…In the former case, dynamical ejection from a planetary System could result in space debris of equipment that is not operational any more … and is floating at the characteristic speed of stars relative to each other in the Solar neighborhood. This would account for the various anomalies of ‘Oumuamua, such as the unusual geometry inferred from its lightcurve … its low thermal emission, suggesting high reflectivity … and its deviation from a Keplerian orbit … without any sign of a cometary tail … or spin-up torques …
Bialy and Loeb went on to offer an even more exotic explanation that Oumuamua is an interstellar probe that is basically at rest relative to other stars in our local stellar cluster:
Alternatively, a more exotic scenario is that ‘Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization…. This discrepancy is readily solved if ‘Oumuamua does not follow a random trajectory but is rather a targeted probe. Interestingly, ‘Oumuamua’s entry velocity is found to be extremely close to the velocity of the Local Standard of Rest, in a kinematic region that is occupied by less than 1 to 500 stars.
In his January 16 interview Loeb elaborated on the idea of Oumuamua being a kind of interstellar probe or buoy powered by solar sails that once monitored space traffic in our local region of the galaxy:
“If you average the velocities of all the stars in the region … you get a system that’s called the ‘local standard of rest.’ Oumuamua was at rest relative to that system. It didn’t come to us. It waited in place, like a buoy on the surface of the ocean, until the ‘ship’ of the solar system ran into it. To make things clear, only one of 500 stars in the system is as much at rest as Oumuamua…
Loeb in his interview explains that he and his colleague Bialy are not the only astronomers questioning whether Oumuamua is an extraterrestrial spacecraft, but they are reluctant to publicly state their opinions given the paucity of data gleaned from the Pan-STARRS and Hubble telescopes.
What would greatly surprise Loeb and other astronomers is that much more scientific data about Oumuamua has been gathered, but this had been classified at a very high level of national security.
According to Corey Goode, who claims to have worked on multiple secret space programs, he watched a video recording of a covert landing mission to Oumuamua conducted by an alliance of these programs that first observed it prior to its entry into our solar system. This is particularly significant given that Oumoamoa’s “official” discovery on October 19, 2017, was after it had passed the sun and was flying past Earth on the outbound portion of its interstellar journey.
Goode’s credibility as a genuine insider was recently given a dramatic boost with confirmation of two Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRD) dealing with “warp drives” and “traversable wormholes” that he was the first to publicly release in late 2017. The documents showed the scientific feasibility of advanced propulsion technologies that Goode had claimed were used in secret space programs.
The two documents were part of a list of 38 “Unclassified: For Official Use Only” documents that the Defense Intelligence Agency confirmed as authentic on January 16, 2019 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Federation of American Scientists.
The recent confirmation of Goode’s leaked DIRD documents means that his testimony about Oumuamua cannot be simply dismissed out of hand, and is well worth considering by astronomers seeking answers to Oumuamua’s origin and composition.
In January 2018, Goode provided a detailed description of what he saw in a video shown to him and others attending a briefing concerning recent covert space activities. Goode wrote about what he witnessed along with the explanation by a former USAF officer [Sigmund] participating in the briefing:
The person leading the meeting then brought our attention to a large smart-glass pad monitor that was lowering from the ceiling. Sigmund then stood up and said “I have a treat for the both of you.” He walked up to the monitor and stared at it while talking. He stated that they had been monitoring what appeared to be a derelict space craft that was headed towards our Sol System.
This would prove to be the same cigar-shaped “asteroid” that NASA and the mainstream media dubbed Oumuamua, and publicized widely in this same time frame.
Goode next explained what he was told about secret space mission sent to observe and land on Oumuamua:
Sigmund puffed up proudly and stated, “I led an expedition to see who this craft belonged to. Wait until you hear what we found.” Suddenly we started seeing all sorts of readings and telemetry on the monitor. I could also hear what sounded like an old NASA radio transmission. There were beeps along with a pilot calling in positions of his craft, as well as the one he was trying to dock with. That lasted for about five minutes as I saw the two craft spiraling closer and closer together.
As the pilot matched the spin of the object they were approaching, you could see a long cigar-shaped structure that had shiny patches of what looked like ice on the outside. It was obviously made of stone, and looked as if it had been through many meteor showers and collisions. The video broke to a scene where a few people who were suited up in space suits were pushing themselves through what looked like a bored-out hole going down into the rock.
Artist illustration of Oumuamua and visiting spacecraft. Credit: Gaia TV/Sphere Being Alliance
Goode also described what secret space program astronauts found when entering inside Oumuamua:
The shuttle had docked with the mystery vessel close to what looked like a metallic oval dome, which was sitting about a third of the way down its fuselage. It appeared to have been breached many times, and was full of holes and dents from obvious impacts. In the next scene, you could see the men in a weightless environment, with lights on their chests, helmets and the tops of their wrists. They split up and were talking to each other through the communications systems in their suits.
One of them was chipping samples out of the icy residue on the floors and walls. This same frozen, organic sludge was on the outside of the ship as well. It appeared like foamy, dirty lake water that had been frozen. The ship was obviously very ancient. It had been boarded and stripped of technology many times by unknown races.
Sigmund stated that when they tested the sludge later, they determined that it was partly the remains of the original crew. There were many panels removed from the walls, ceilings and floors, leaving empty compartments where technology was once located.
Goode went on to describe the discovery of preserved bodies of former crew members, the identity of an ancient extraterrestrial race they belonged to, the craft being trapped in orbit for millions of years, and a hieroglyphic language found inside the craft.
All this might sound incredible to astronomers relying on the scant data provided by the two telescopes that observed Oumuamua from a great distance. Goode’s release of DIA documents showing the feasibility of advanced propulsion systems such as warp drives, gives a degree of credibility to his claim that a covert space mission to Oumuamua was conducted and recorded on video.
It is certain that the video Goode witnessed has been shown to many scientists with need to know inside the covert world of secret space programs. The similarity of Goode’s account with what Clark described in Rendezvous with Rama is extraordinary. Perhaps Prof. Loeb and Dr. Bialy may have been made aware of such extraordinary information and are presenting their Oumoumou spacecraft hypothesis to open the minds of incredulous colleagues . Eventually, such classified data will be revealed to give a much more accurate and fuller picture of objects such as Oumuamua entering or inside our solar system, and the classified missions to these conducted by multiple secret space programs.
• In studying Oumuamua over the past year, Harvard Smithsonian astronomers, Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb, determined that the object was activated and propelled by sunlight. The light radiation from the Sun exerts its force on the rock’s surface and this powers the asteroid on. This means that we could be looking at the reminiscences of a reconnaissance probe conducted by extraterrestrials. These mainstream scientists are putting forth a theory that might seem crazy to others: that Oumuamua might have built by an extraterrestrial civilization.
Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb, two astronomers from Harvard Smithsonian made an interesting observation recently. According to them, the mysterious interstellar rock Oumuamua might be a proof that aliens exist. The scientists claim to have noticed signs that the asteroid is part of a light-driven probe. This means that we could be looking at the reminiscences of a reconnaissance mission conducted by extraterrestrials.
The asteroid was spotted out of the Earth’s solar system last September
The mysterious rock drew the scientists’ attention because of its unusual behaviour outside our solar system. Last year, in September, when they noticed it, the asteroid was moving at a high speed when the normal tendency would be to slow down.
At first, the observers thought that the rock is acting so strange because a gas was released inside it. After they looked deeper into the matter, the astronomers realized that if Oumuamua were a comet with abnormal gas releases, the object would have to spin throughout the space.
With all the speed, the asteroid remained flat, so Bialy and Loeb reached the conclusion that Oumuamua is actually activated by the sunlight. How is that possible? The light exerts its force on the rock’s surface and this powers the asteroid on.
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• The head of Harvard University’s Astronomy Department, Abraham Loeb, has published a paper recommending that humans develop technology to relocate our civilization into a dense ‘galaxy cluster’ that will stand the best chance of maintaining it’s gravity and stay together as a cluster as the rest of the universe pulls away and spreads out too far to be of any use.
• In the 1990s, scientists discovered that the universe was expanding at an exponential rate, being pulled apart by invisible ‘dark energy’ that was stronger than gravity. By the time the universe is 138 billion years old, (it is currently less than 14 billion years old) all objects in space will have moved away far from each other to the point that they are virtually inaccessible.
• Galaxy clusters are groups of thousands of galaxies formed 10 billion years ago that are held together by the mutual gravitational attraction. Loeb believes this gravity is strong enough to resist the expansion of the universe. The nearest candidate for us is the Virgo Cluster which can be found toward the Virgo constellation 50 million light-years away (depicted in image above). The Virgo Cluster contains a thousand times more matter than the Milky Way.
• Advanced alien species may have already begun migrating to these rich galaxy clusters. Civilizations nestled in galaxy clusters would have access to solar energy sources for trillions of years. Loeb says it may be best for humans follow to suit. “It would be beneficial for us to reside in the company of as many alien civilizations as possible with whom we could share technology,” says Loeb.
• Loeb has worked with theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson who thinks that humans need to develop a way to pull in stars and concentrate them around the Earth to withstand the force of expansion. Dan Hooper of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory has proposed that advanced civilizations could use energy from stars to push these stars toward the center of their civilizations.
• Loeb’s idea accomplishes the same thing by going to an energy-rich galaxy cluster, rather than clustering stars around our own planet which could prove difficult. Likewise, the best place to currently find advanced extraterrestrial civilizations may be at the heart of dense galaxy clusters.
The best place to find advanced extraterrestrial civilizations may be at the heart of matter-rich galaxy clusters, according to a top Harvard astronomer.
Harvard University’s Abraham Loeb, head of the Astronomy Department, says aliens could have traveled to galaxy clusters in preparation for the impending isolation that could happen to intelligent civilizations as the universe rapidly expands far beyond its current size.
In a paper published in the pre-print server ArXiv, Loeb describes how advanced alien civilizations could have congregated in clusters of thousands of galaxies akin to the Milky Way, similar to how Earth’s ancient peoples have flocked to the rivers and lakes.
Preparing For The Expansion Of The Universe
In the 1990s, scientists discovered that the universe was expanding at an exponential rate, contrary to the popular theory at the time that gravity will eventually cause the universe to collapse in on itself.
This has led to the theory of dark energy, a mysterious force believed to comprise three-fourths of the entire universe. Experts theorize that dark energy may be responsible for the expansion of the universe against the inward pull of gravity.
By the time the universe turns 138 billion years old, dark energy will have become the most dominant force in the cosmos and all objects in space will have moved away far from each other that they are virtually inaccessible.
This applies to the Local Group as well, the group of galaxies containing the Milky Way, Andromeda, and all their satellites.
Assuming that humanity will still be around when this happens, Loeb recommends it is best to prepare for such drastic isolation by migrating to galaxy clusters.
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by Matt Williams April 20, 2018 (universetoday.com)
• In two recent research papers, Harvard Professor Abraham Loeb and Sonneberg Observatory researcher Michael Hippke looked at the challenges that extra-terrestrials would face launching chemical rockets from large planets and also planets in a close orbit to its central sun. Both situations create a gravity well that would require an escape velocity impossible for chemical rocket propulsion.
• Our G-type Earth is unique in that it is relatively small and at such a distance from its yellow dwarf star that it will allow a rocket to escape from the Earth’s gravity well. Says Loeb, “By a fortunate coincidence, the escape speed from the orbit of the Earth around the Sun is at the limit of attainable speed by chemical rockets… But the habitable zone around fainter stars is closer in, making it much more challenging for chemical rockets to escape from the deeper gravitational pit there.”
• The most common star in the galaxy is the M-type red dwarf star, accounting for 75% of the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The red dwarfs are also the most likely stars to have rocky planets. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is such an M-type star. It has an Earth-sized planet, Proxima b, with a ‘habitable zone’ for possible life that is much closer to its’ fainter star than is the Earth to the Sun. “A civilization on Proxima b will find it difficult to escape from their location to interstellar space with chemical rockets,” says Loeb.
• Hippke suggests that planets that have more mass than the Earth, and therefore a higher surface gravity, along with flatter topography, shallow oceans, and a thicker atmosphere, may be ideal for biological life. But the higher surface gravity means that it will also have a higher escape velocity. The amount of propellant needed lift a rocket out of the planet’s gravity would make this method of propulsion impractical. This could have a serious effect on an alien civilization’s space travel. Explains Hippke, “On more massive planets, space flight would be exponentially more expensive. Such civilizations would not have satellite TV, a moon mission, or a Hubble Space Telescope. This should alter their way of development in certain ways we can now analyze in more detail.”
• Both Loeb and Hippke also noted that extra-terrestrial civilizations could address these challenges by adopting other methods of propulsion. Chemical propulsion may be something that few technologically-advanced species would adopt because it is simply not practical. Therefore, it would make sense to search for extraterrestrial signals associated with lightsails or nuclear engines near dwarf stars.
• “Civilizations from Super-Earths are much less likely to explore the stars,” reasons Hippke. “They would be (to some extent) “arrested” on their home planet, and make more use of lasers or radio telescopes for interstellar communication instead of sending probes or spaceships.”
• [Editor’s Note] On the other hand, advanced civilizations who have mastered anti-gravity propulsion, space-time wormholes, and space-time bubbles would consider chemical-fueled or even nuclear-fueled rockets to be primitive technology. The UFO’s we see darting all around the sky certainly aren’t rockets.
Since the beginning of the Space Age, humans have relied on chemical rockets to get into space. While this method is certainly effective, it is also very expensive and requires a considerable amount of resources. As we look to more efficient means of getting out into space, one has to wonder if similarly-advanced species on other planets (where conditions would be different) would rely on similar methods.
Harvard Professor Abraham Loeb and Michael Hippke, an independent researcher affiliated with the Sonneberg Observatory, both addressed this question in two recently–released papers. Whereas Prof. Loeb looks at the challenges extra-terrestrials would face launching rockets from Proxima b, Hippke considers whether aliens living on a Super-Earth would be able to get into space.
Professor Abraham Loeb
The papers, tiled “Interstellar Escape from Proxima b is Barely Possible with Chemical Rockets” and “Spaceflight from Super-Earths is difficult” recently appeared online, and were authored by Prof. Loeb and Hippke, respectively. Whereas Loeb addresses the challenges of chemical rockets escaping Proxima b, Hippke considers whether or not the same rockets would able to achieve escape velocity at all.
For the sake of his study, Loeb considered how we humans are fortunate enough to live on a planet that is well-suited for space launches. Essentially, if a rocket is to escape from the Earth’s surface and reach space, it needs to achieve an escape velocity of 11.186 km/s (40,270 km/h; 25,020 mph). Similarly, the escape velocity needed to get away from the location of the Earth around the Sun is about 42 km/s (151,200 km/h; 93,951 mph).
As Prof. Loeb told Universe Today via email: “Chemical propulsion requires a fuel mass that grows exponentially with terminal speed. By a fortunate coincidence the escape speed from the orbit of the Earth around the Sun is at the limit of attainable speed by chemical rockets. But the habitable zone around fainter stars is closer in, making it much more challenging for chemical rockets to escape from the deeper gravitational pit there.”
As Loeb indicates in his essay, the escape speed scales as the square root of the stellar mass over the distance from the star, which implies that the escape speed from the habitable zone scales inversely with stellar mass to the power of one quarter. For planets like Earth, orbiting within the habitable zone of a G-type (yellow dwarf) star like our Sun, this works out quite well.
Unfortunately, this does not work well for terrestrial planets that orbit lower-mass M-type (red dwarf) stars. These stars are the most common type in the Universe, accounting for 75% of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. In addition, recent exoplanet surveys have discovered a plethora of rocky planets orbiting red dwarf stars systems, with some scientists venturing that they are the most likely place to find potentially-habitable rocky planets.
Using the nearest star to our own as an example (Proxima Centauri), Loeb explains how a rocket using chemical propellant would have a much harder time achieving escape velocity from a planet located within its habitable zone.
“The nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is an example for a faint star with only 12% of the mass of the Sun,” he said. “A couple of years ago, it was discovered that this star has an Earth-size planet, Proxima b, in its habitable zone, which is 20 times closer than the separation of the Earth from the Sun. At that location, the escape speed is 50% larger than from the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. A civilization on Proxima b will find it difficult to escape from their location to interstellar space with chemical rockets.”
Michael Hippke
Hippke’s paper, on the other hand, begins by considering that Earth may in fact not be the most habitable type of planet in our Universe. For instance, planets that are more massive than Earth would have higher surface gravity, which means they would be able to hold onto a thicker atmosphere, which would provide greater shielding against harmful cosmic rays and solar radiation.
In addition, a planet with higher gravity would have a flatter topography, resulting in archipelagos instead of continents and shallower oceans – an ideal situation where biodiversity is concerned. However, when it comes to rocket launches, increased surface gravity would also mean a higher escape velocity. As Hippke indicated in his study: “Rockets suffer from the Tsiolkovsky (1903) equation : if a rocket carries its own fuel, the ratio of total rocket mass versus final velocity is an exponential function, making high speeds (or heavy payloads) increasingly expensive.”
For comparison, Hippke uses Kepler-20 b, a Super-Earth located 950 light years away that is 1.6 times Earth’s radius and 9.7 times it mass. Whereas escape velocity from Earth is roughly 11 km/s, a rocket attempting to leave a Super-Earth similar to Kepler-20 b would need to achieve an escape velocity of ~27.1 km/s. As a result, a single-stage rocket on Kepler-20 b would have to burn 104 times as much fuel as a rocket on Earth to get into orbit.
To put it into perspective, Hippke considers specific payloads being launched from Earth. “To lift a more useful payload of 6.2 t as required for the James Webb Space Telescope on Kepler-20 b, the fuel mass would increase to 55,000 t, about the mass of the largest ocean battleships,” he writes. “For a classical Apollo moon mission (45 t), the rocket would need to be considerably larger, ~400,000 t.”
While Hippke’s analysis concludes that chemical rockets would still allow for escape velocities on Super-Earths up to 10 Earth masses, the amount of propellant needed makes this method impractical. As Hippke pointed out, this could have a serious effect on an alien civilization’s development.
“I am surprised to see how close we as humans are to end up on a planet which is still reasonably lightweight to conduct space flight,” he said. “Other civilizations, if they exist, might not be as lucky. On more massive planets, space flight would be exponentially more expensive. Such civilizations would not have satellite TV, a moon mission, or a Hubble Space Telescope. This should alter their way of development in certain ways we can now analyze in more detail.”
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What really attracted scientific attention was when Oumuamua accelerated as it approached the sun according to data provided by the Hubble telescope in June 2018.
