Meh, there's plenty of naturally occurring things, that look 'artificial' to the human eye at first glance.
spoiler
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Some metallic spheres after entry of a meteoroid into earths atmosphere are not enough unless you explain how they couldn't have formed naturally.
Metallic spheres are one of the easiest things to create naturally. We used the principle in shot towers throughout history to make bullets. I'm just an armchair expert, but it doesn't surprise me in the least we'd see near-perfect metallic spheres from a meteor burning up in the atmosphere.
Dippin' dots are still made that way.
My understanding is that metallic spherules from iron meteorites would be expected to include nickel. The absence of nickel in iron containing spherules like these would usually indicate a non-natural source i.e. human technology. The speed and trajectory of the meteor which may be the source, however, indicates an interstellar origin.
I believe that initial analyses of these spherules has revealed an absence of nickel.
The spherules were recovered from areas in the expected debris zone; none were recovered from the surrounding, control zones.
The U.S. Space Command confirmed with almost near certainty, 99.999%, that the material came from another solar system.
Yeah, but... Lots of things come to us from other solar systems given enough time. Just naturally. Is it alien? Yes! But that's nothing special. Is it technology? I mean. Probably not. This is almost certainly a non-story. If the headline read something like, "Harvard professor studying extra-solar fragments," it would be just as interesting to anyone who actually cares. But that group is very niche. As it is, the headline we get is eye-catching but stupid and malicious.
You don't have the whole context. The relevance of it being interstellar is that, at the speeds it was travelling, it should have vaporized completely when entering out atmosphere. The fact that pieces survived reentry is anomalous, as it indicates that it must have been made from alloys not naturally present in any other object that we've seen entering out atmosphere from outer space.
If those alloys are natural (but never seen before) or artificial (and so created by some other intelligence), that's the question here.
I believe you could potentially fill an endless space with the amount of knowledge humans currently lack.
This is a potentially cool discovery, but it seems a massive leap to suggest the alloy was intelligently derived.
That was more my point. This is a fascinating thing to study! It's new and from very far away and observations around it are odd! That's all exciting! But that's all exciting without having to force in, "ALIENS CONFIRMED???" into the conversation around it.
I am not convinced until someone shows me some actual evidence.
Regardless, I am interested to see how the religious zealots will try to explain aliens when "god created man in his likeness". Oh yeah, did he create aliens in his likeness too? Or will they come up with another "immaculate conception by a ghost"-like crazy explanation noone has every heard about?
I've actually heard religious people talk about the idea of aliens.
Essentially their conclusion was that the bible doesn't rule out aliens because it doesn't say God didn't make other planets with life.
I’m sure I read recently that the Vatican is not against the idea
The Vatican is pretty pro science. It's a lot of the other Christian faiths that are overly strict with their interpretation of the bible.
Yeah, nothing in the Bible says there can’t be aliens. It doesn’t really change anything. For the Christians who deny the possibility of aliens, they probably just have a superiority complex, as do many who claim to know more than they do or who claim their theories on origin of life are definitive. Nothing new with humanity.
Cult I grew up in believes their god seeded human life across the universe
The idea of extraterrestrial life has been commonplace since the 1600s. Since then, there's been many waves of belief-disbelief in extraterrestrial life.
This won't be anything new for Christianity to ponder, and they'll have plenty of theological material to fall back on.
"god created man in his likeness". Oh yeah, did he create aliens in his likeness too?
Depends on what that "likeness" is. What if "God created both man and alien to be bloodthirsty creatures to fight each other"... and the winner gets to fight God live on GodTV. In the meantime, tune in to PlanetaryWars channel this weekend to see a whole civilization annihilate itself!
I would like to subscribe to your papal schism!
Maybe by likeness it means sentience, not physical appearance.
Why is this shit world news?
Because we don't have /c/NotTheOnion afaik
Loeb is a nutjob. He'll claim anything is proof of alien life as long as it gives him media attention.
From the article:
"The research and analysis is just beginning at Harvard. Loeb is trying to understand if the spherules are artificial or natural."
So very much what you said, Loeb saying things to grab headlines.
I think if you drop molten metal into water a lot of it will form spheres. Not all of it, but that didn't in this case either. This guy just ignored the non-spherical bits of metal. The coloration of them also shows it's been heated.
Professor: This material doesn’t appear to have been made naturally
Newspaper: E.T. FOUND
There are fragments of alien technology in my balls.
You know what this tells me? It tells me that Dr. Avi Loeb would touch space goo and press any button placed in front of him. Hasn't he read/watched The Expanse?! 😂
Next thing you know we’ll hear about him turning into a vomit zombie.
I'm picturing someone struggling to hold on to their last vestiges of human consciousness while getting ready to blast blue-brown vomit everywhere. "Worth... it...," he manages to rasp out, before collapsing to the ground to watch as his hands detach and skitter their way over to an instrument panel to begin their own Work.
i'll wait for the confirmed results.
The name always pop up with strings like fermi paradox on YouTube so I'll take his opinion as entertainment, much like Michio Kaku. I guess futurist like Avi and Michio most likely to be wrong.
It says in the article they're not sure whether it's artificial.
Spheres are pretty common in nature and all of those elements are common in meteorites, this is just blow out of proportion. If it had stuff like a polymer that would be interesting. Also the guy saying some of the spheres look like miniature earths is just pareidolia
Soon: "US Officials declares the reports of alien technology being found as untrue. Harvard Professor Avi Loeb dies of an accident."
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