Where did ‘Oumuamua come from? What is it made of, and how did it end up here? Is it really an artifact of an alien civilization? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!

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this episode of Ask Us Spaceman is brought to you by the good people at better help. That's better. Help dot com I I know a lot of you listen to this show as a form of therapy A as a way of, of escaping the world and and just going among the stars on this wonderful journey. Uh, I am a big advocate for therapy. I personally see a therapist, and you would be surprised if you don't currently see a therapist how much they can really help you Just navigate a difficult life just like you see a doctor to help you with physical conditions, you should see a therapist Better help dot com is a way to do that. That's convenient. It's affordable. Uh, these are professional counselors that you can connect to online a range of expertise worldwide. It really is an invaluable resource. Uh, as a listener, you can get 10% off your first month by visiting our sponsor at better help dot com slash spaceman.

You can join 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health again. That's better. Help HE LP dot com slash spaceman. There's an old saying scientific breakthroughs are not usually heralded by Eureka, but more often by hm, that's strange. In 2017, an astronomer with the Pan Stars telescope in Hawaii had a Hm. That strange moment. A new object not detected before That was, well, strange. At the time of discovery, it was already 33 million kilometers away from the earth and moving away from the sun. It was fast, way fast. An observation. It was moving at nearly 50 kilometers per second with respect to the sun. That meant right there that it was too fast to be a normal orbiting object. It was on a solar escape trajectory. It was not gravitationally bound to our sun. Its orbit was also highly elliptic. Uh, 1.2.

Uh, that's not just elliptic. That's hyperbolic. It was open its orbit had an inclination or tilt relative to the rest of the solar system of 100 22 degrees. This object wasn't just escaping the solar system. It was never a part of the solar system. Humanity had just detected its first interstellar visitor named MUA, which is a Hawaiian word roughly translating to scout. Astronomers were able to track it for about another 11 days using ground based telescopes. The Spitzer Space Telescope, Uh um, until it was too faint to be seen. And that's it. Our first known interstellar interloper and all we have is maybe a combined 100 hours of observation time total. It's like rendezvous with Rama, but way more boring. But in that short span of time, we were able to learn some things about a MOA. We learned that it's small no more than 10 to 100 m across, uh, in its longest dimension.

And also Spitzer didn't detect it, failed to see anything in terms of thermal or infrared mission. And so that's how we were able to determine its size. Because, you know, if it's something big and it's like has a certain temperature, Spitzer should be able to see it, and so you can't see it. And so it has. You know, it has to be no bigger than that size. We learned that it's narrow, either cigar shaped or a flattened pancake, as much as 5 to 10 times longer than it is wide. We learned that it's tumbling about once every few hours. It's dread. We learned it's not very bright with an albedo or reflectivity somewhere around 0.05 to 0.01 for reference. The moon is about 10 times more reflective. Let me be absolutely clear. So I want you to hear me. Saying this with bold and underlined in my voice is completely unlike any other object in the solar system. I'll say again, this time in italics is completely unlike any other object in the solar system.

No other solar system object has this kind of weird shape, and we've seen all sorts of weird shapes out there, but not this kind of weird shape. We've never seen this kind of tumbling. We've never seen this, Uh, uh, kind of reflectivity. It's just just weird. The mysteries continued, the more we got to observe it. On its way out of the solar system, astronomers observed ou to gently accelerate it. It wasn't much, but it was detectable and this acceleration was in the outwards direction. So as it was leaving the sun getting further away from the sun, it was gently going faster and faster. This is not uncommon for comets, so we call this non gravitational acceleration. What can happen for comets is when it gets close to the sun, one part will be heated. More than another or one side will be slightly shinier than the other. And it will eject material in the form of a coma one side side preferentially than the other.

Or the side that is still facing the sun on its way out will get a little bit more heating. And so it will add out gas a little bit more, and that will push it just a little bit like a little tiny rocket exhaust. You know, this isn't crazy. It's all fine and good, except there is no observed coma around a, um acted like a comet, but looked like an asteroid had this weird tumbling shape. It was just simply, it was one of a kind. We don't know where came from. We don't know how long it's been in the galaxy. We don't know how common objects like it are. Oh, and if that's not a mystery, well, how about this? Its incoming velocity was pretty close to something called the local standard of rest. Uh, if you if you take all the stars in our vicinity and average together all their emotions you get like this is like the the average velocity. But all almost all stars have velocities much greater than that. It's like if you had a bunch of short kids in a class and a bunch of tall kids in a class, you average them together.

You get a medium. But no one's actually medium. They're all they're all either really short or really tall. Uh, well, A was average, which is unlike any other object around us. Is that a coincidence, or is it something else? And that's it? Yeah, that's it. That's the evidence. That's all the information we have and all we ever have about. Um, even with our best technology, it's too late to run an intercept flyby unless we had some sort of patreon campaign. Patreon dot com slash PM Sutter to really accelerate not just this show, but our observations of that's patreon dot com slash PM Sutter. That's it. But seriously, folks, that's it. That's all the data we have. That's all the information we'll ever have about a as usual, this is what I call a data poor environment. We we don't have a lot of information, and so not everyone agrees on the nature of the data that we do have because some of it wasn't all the greatest quality. A astronomers continue to debate the size, its albedo.

It's reflectivity and and even dispute the non detection of the coma like it was a hard observation. This is a difficult, challenging, astronomical target. It's very, very small, and it's very, very far away, and it's getting further away with time. So everyone was kind of in a rush. And so, yeah, we didn't see a coma. But the data aren't exactly, you know, definitive that there was no coma. Just that, you know, maybe we didn't see one. Maybe it was really faint or something. It is our duty as scientists to explain all the available evidence. In this case, all we can ever do is hypothesize we can make guesses about what a was, but we can never say for certain because we have no further evidence it would take another to prefer one hypothesis over the other. This is, in many ways, a situation not unfamiliar to longtime listeners of this podcast we have. You know, this is just astronomy 101. We have some set of observations. We have a few best guesses as to what's going on. The debate goes on, but so does life. We frequently run into the limits of knowledge, and it's simply the way it is.

Sometimes we don't have enough data to to say one way or the other, and that's just that's just life. Indeed, that's one of the many reasons I haven't done an episode until now. In the early days, we didn't even have a halfway decent hypothesis, and now we have some slightly better hypotheses. But honestly wouldn't be of much interest today. I it would be of interest to the astronomical community. But there's a reason that people still talk about a. I still see articles about A. I still see discussions about a and there's a reason I'm doing an episode on A and that's because of one person. Avi Loeb. For those of you who don't know, Avi Loeb was the chair of the Harvard Astronomy Department for something like a decade, which is an unusually long tenure incredibly prolific astronomer. Hundreds of papers to his name serves on national review panels, presidential science advisory boards, the works he's very well known I've even been on collaborations with him. Uh, he's very popular in the press as well.

You know, when you write hundreds of papers, um, you know, you get some attention and you know he's Harvard. The Harvard astronomy had best it gets, you know, he's a frequent interviewee on any subject having to do with astronomy. In early 2018, a few months after the first detection and announcement of Avi Loeb and his graduate student wrote a short paper, the paper claimed that ou was an alien spaceship. I'll say that again in case you were distracted or the dogs were barking when I said that critical sentence. Avi Loeb, Harvard astronomer, claims that is an alien spaceship. I'm gonna take a pause here, Let me say this is a fascinating astronomical object. It It's interesting. It's strange, It's bizarre. It's unlike anything we've ever seen. It's it's worthy of study and interest, and it's sad to me that so much of the modern day conversation years later about this fascinating object is wrapped up in Avi Loeb and his claims.

When I went to write this episode, I looked over the recent papers about who's still talking about it. Who's still working? What what professional astronomers saying About one third of the papers are devoted to a in the object. One third are written by Avi Loeb, talking about it being aliens and then one third are focused on and not being aliens and trying to counter Avi Loeb's claims. OK, uh, and the But the vast majority of the popular press discussion is about Avi Loeb's ideas and not really any other ideas from other scientists. I don't believe this is a very fruitful scientific discussion. As I'm about to get into. I'd rather celebrate and explore with joy and wonder the mystery of, um, I think the alien discussion is a sideshow, a distraction from that goal. All this brain power, all this intelligence that could have gone into studying OU is instead spent arguing with Avi Loeb. That includes me. If you look back deep into my Twitter history shortly after these claims were made in 2018, I called it an insult to honest scientific inquiry.

Yeah and I. I stand by that claim. I also said other things like it's never aliens. I don't say that anymore because, you know it is a hypothesis. But the way this hypothesis is presented as I'm about to discuss is not an honest scientific inquiry. I got a lot of backlash from Avi Loeb. Drama happened. I'm not going to say that is an aliens. I'm not gonna say that. And attempts to paint my discussions and analysis as that are are unfair and not characterizing what I'm actually saying. I'm saying it's a bad idea. I'm not saying it's not aliens. I don't know what a is and nobody else does, either. The longtime listeners of the show will start smelling the stance I'm about to take. If it's interesting, it's probably wrong. Go ahead and stay with me. It's a useful mantra to help navigate competing hypotheses and potentially life. The most interesting slash alluring slash sexy hypothesis is likely to be incorrect simply because the universe is more boring than we would prefer it to be. I believe this is an efficient, rational way to approach scientific questions, but to lobe I'm part of the problem.

That's because Avi Loeb has wrapped up discussions of with discussions of lack of imagination and science, and the thing is I, I agree with him I do think that science is constrained, that young scientists have to follow very particular paths. You can't just go out and follow your curiosity. There are trends and, uh, fashionable topics. And and this this kind of thing can lock people in and even destroy careers. And it's part of my my book that I'm writing about some of the issues with how modern science is is practiced. And, yeah, I agree with Loeb that that that scientists can not. On a personal level, I think personally, scientists are enormously imaginative and creative, but at an institutional level, there is a certain lack of imagination and lack of willingness to take risks. Uh, but not here, if you know me.

You know, I have big problems with any alien hypothesis. There could be aliens out there. There are probably aliens out there now. So it I don't have problems with alien hypotheses. Not because I don't think aliens might exist, but because it's a terrible scientific hypothesis Aliens make for bad science. Anyway, all this came away in early 2018. There were social media arguments. There are competing quotes in news articles. Uh, which side digression you know, There's a whole thing about the way media handles debates, which is nothing new to science. And then we all forgot about it. You know, some people continue to work on a and study it and pour over. The data come up with interesting, creative, challenging, naturalistic explanations. And then, out of nowhere, in Early 20 or 21 Avi Loeb wrote a book called Extraterrestrial, where he resurrected his alien spaceship Hypothesis or Idea. I don't even know if it qualifies as a hypothesis, because we're cut off from further observations anyway and talked about how how all the other scientists are big old meanie heads. And I'm paraphrasing here. Shortly after that, a journal called Inference asked me to write a review of his book.

So I did. I read the whole stinking book and wrote a review. It's publicly available if you want to read it. But the version online has been heavily edited to quote match the style and tone of the journal. In other words, they made it way more boring and changed a lot of my wording, which is fine. That's just how editing goes. I'm gonna do something weird here on this podcast But, hey, you know is super weird. Anyway, I'm gonna read my review. The review. I originally wrote my draft of the review. So this you cannot find online some of the words and phrases you might find, but but not this, Um, I'm gonna do it right now. Upon opening Extraterrestrial, the first sign of intelligent life beyond Earth by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, you might think you're going to explore a variety of interesting topics. The mystery of the first known interstellar visitor to our solar system, the history of the search for extraterrestrial life. Or set the present day hunt for biosignatures on other worlds, the tantalizing possibility of life outside the Earth and its implications for us, the placement of humanity on a grander cosmic stage.

You will explore these topics, but only barely. Instead, you'll spend most of your time reading about the actual favorite subject of the book, Avi Loeb, the industriousness of his father and wisdom of his mother. The sage advice he gives his precocious daughters his prestigious and numerous positions and awards the vacation spots that his family prefers, which is clean, not polluted beaches, the jet settings to conferences around the world, the age of his house over a century, the titans of industry and politics that seek his knowledge, the brilliant leaps of insight, his insight that have pushed the boundaries of human awareness. The parties with Stephen Hawking, the fact that he once saw a baby goat, the confident knowledge that he alone was positioned to see for what it really was, the humility that characterizes his personality. Most importantly, you'll learn that if we all listen to Loeb's message that is an artifact of alien technology.

It will usher in a golden age of humanity where we will put aside our differences, seek out our galactic cousins and join together in a new era of harmony and exploration. Oh, and also invest heavily in Loeb's lines of research. Full disclosure. Ever since Lowe began promoting these ideas in 2018, I've been an outspoken critic, discussing the issue in TV interviews and on my own outreach media. I was not surprised to find that in the obverse of his book, this makes me a villain. You'll have to take my word for it that when I opened this book, I took a deep breath like over the past three years and hoped that the pages would bring an interesting, fresh perspective on the alluring possibility of evidence for life outside the earth they did not. Let's start with, as the entirety of Loeb's message rests on what you think that strange visitor really is. The visitor, whose name roughly translates from Hawaiian as Scout, was first spotted on October 19th 2017 by astronomer Robert Work with the Pan Stars telescope in Hawaii. At the time of its discovery, it was already on a solar escaped trajectory, sitting 0.22 a U away from the Earth.

Given the extreme eccentricity of its orbit and velocity at an infinite distance from the sun, astronomers quickly recognized it as an extrasolar body. No object gravitationally bound to the sun could have those characteristics. However, due to its small size and rapid velocity, astronomers from more than half a dozen observatories were only able to monitor a muo for 11 days. In short, a is full of surprises and almost entirely unlike anything we have on hand in the solar system. For starters it exists and we observed it with current technology on accident, even meaning that it must be one member of a vast population of interstellar travelers, a population several orders of magnitude larger than what we had previously estimated. It's small somewhere in the range of 100 m, but it's also much more elongated than than solar system object its size either cigar shaped or a flattened oval with an excess ratio of at least 6 to 1. Based on variations in its light curve, it's tumbling around its shortest axis every eight hours, a variation seen in only a handful of known objects.

It passed within 0.25 a U of the sun. But the Spitzer Space telescope did not detect it, meaning that it had to have been unnaturally shiny so it couldn't absorb heat. Even more strangely upon entry into the solar system was relatively stationary, with respect to the local standard of rest and the mean motion of stars within 100 part six of the sun. Almost all nearby stars have peculiar velocities, roughly five times greater than a lastly, and most critically for Loeb's argument is Ou's Mu's non gravitational acceleration. As a tiny visitor raced away from US, astronomers observed it to deviate from a Newtonian trajectory, with the magnitude of the acceleration dropping off with the square of its distance from the sun. Comets do this all the time by outgassing due to solar heating, but no outgassing was observed around MUA. Taken together is is strange indeed, which raises a valid question. Why should the first detected interstellar object be so radically different than any known solar system body?

For Loeb, this was too much, calling it a quote. One in a Million object although this particular choice of number has no discernible motivation and is oddly raised to one in a trillion by the end of the book for Loeb, this is sufficient evidence to claim that is not a natural object but rather a light sail, a piece of technology that can accelerate small spacecraft by reflecting Starlight or laser light If you really want to make a move, this neatly explains its non Newtonian acceleration by virtue of the light sail, doing what it's supposed to do its shines because if your light sail absorbs radiation, it'll just melt its shape because the best light sails are broad and thin, and even its existence in position prior to entering the solar system because somebody put it there. Loeb consistently and helpful, reminds his readers that this is merely a hypothesis, and if you stop reading right there, it sounds plausible. But despite purportedly being the main subject of the book, Loeb spends less than 10% of the volume of the text on the technical details of an analysis of and his hypothesis.

Indeed, Lowe couldn't devote more pages to his theory of A because, just like every plausible sounding conspiracy theory, it has to stop there, with the theory neatly and perfectly explaining all the data with no gaps or drawbacks. Further analysis would reveal the inconsistencies in his arguments, which would undermine the entire rest of the book, just like conspiracy theories, global warming skeptics and even flat earthers. The longer the arguments go on, the more knots they tie themselves in. And the closer you examine them, the more everything unravels. All we have and all we'll ever have regarding a is contained in those 11 days of observations that data poor environment is ripe for speculation. But it doesn't make us ignorant, is not outrageously shiny, as Loeb falsely claims it's most likely. Albedo is around 0.1 which is pretty on par with known solar system objects and not nearly reflective enough for an effective light sail, undermining all the calculations that Loeb bases.

His hypothesis on OU did indeed approach us from nearly the local standard of rest. But due to biases of observations, there is absolutely nothing unusual about its trajectory. Indeed, is behaving exactly as we predicted. Detectable interstellar objects to behave is common. Mum argues that no model of planetary system mass loss could account for enough interstellar travelers to explain us detecting it. But that assumes a specific model of mass loss, which then translates into a given number. Density of objects. Other mass loss models perfectly encapsulate a sufficient number of sized objects roaming the galaxy. We do not know the underlying size distribution of interstellar objects, and so arguments about its rarity are grounded in speculation. As for the non gravitational acceleration and lack of out casting, there's an important caveat that Loeb fails to include is a challenging astronomical target, and our surveys of it were not nearly comprehensive.

It's entirely possible that we simply missed the outcast, or that the outgassing proceeded through an unobserved channel or that solar heating played a role or any number of plausible explanations. As for the alien technology idea, the light sail calculations do not include its tumbling motion. Uh, in order to get the right size and density lobe, must assume that the sail remains perpendicular to the sun, let alone the true reflectivity of the object. Additionally, a tumbling thin light sail would periodically vanish, not just dim relative to our vantage point on Earth. And over the course of 11 days of observations, the variations themselves must change due to our own evolving orbit, there is no known light sail configuration that can satisfy all those constraints. As for the local standard of rest question, Loeb posits that perhaps the aliens developed a system of buoys floating across the galaxy, ready to be swept up by a nearby solar system. It's this explanation that betrays the primary weakness of an alien hypothesis.

Once you involve intelligent actors, you can have them do whatever you want them to do in order to explain any mystery in the observation whatsoever. Quote one possibility is that OU's makers intentionally targeted our inner solar system. The other is that is a piece of space junk that happened upon us or we upon it. Either of these interpretations would be accurate, regardless of whether the civilization that created still exists today. End quote. Ultimately, we do not fully understand many aspects of, um, especially its non gravitational acceleration. It very well could be alien technology. But arguments based on aliens make for exceedingly weak scientific hypotheses. Because aliens are intelligent, they can plug any hole, fill any gap. You can answer any question in the universe with aliens. Their powers and in capabilities are limited only by the fecundity of your imagination. And Loeb himself admits that he has a very active imagination. Aliens provide an easy explanation for any astronomical mystery too easy.

No matter what properties MOA had, it's possible to concoct an alien scenario to explain it. But mysteries abound in science. Should we ascribe alien motivations to every unanswered question? Are aliens responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe, the launching of jets from active galactic nuclei, the heating of the sun's corona? The rotation rate of Saturn aliens are useless scientifically, they can explain everything, and so they explain nothing. Loeb frequently claims that the alien hypothesis is the simplest one, because we have to stretch our naturalistic explanations too thin, and thus we should believe him, citing Ockham's razor. But Loeb misunderstands the famous maxim. It's not that we should believe the hypothesis that is simplest to state, but rather that entity should not be multiplied without necessity. In order to explain A as a piece of alien technology, we have to accept the existence of a large number of alien civilizations, their desire to build light sails, their ability to produce an astounding number of said light sails and their ability to place at least one in the path of the solar system.

None of these statements have any evidence to back them up whatsoever. When confronted with these questions, Lo points to Mu's evidence. But when asked to explain the origins of Lo points to the existence of aliens, a never ending circle of arguments that goes nowhere. And let's not forget that for the supposed super intelligent creatures that they are, the aliens managed to devise a really, really lame spacecraft. Apparently, they made a light sail so that it could, you know, escape a solar system marginally faster than what gravity would accomplish on its own and looks and acts indistinguishably from a random, small rock. As for how Loeb's Lightsail spacecraft managed to maneuver itself into the local standard of rest, he is silent. So here's the real story. The fact that Loeb reached into the hat of alien technology and pulled out light sails is not a coincidence at all. Avi Loeb chairs the science advisory committee for the Breakthrough Star Shot Initiative, a project started by millionaire Yuri Milner, whose goal is to develop a proof of concept for using lasers to propel tiny spacecraft to other stars using light sails.

As Loeb admits in the book, Aliens in interstellar travel and light sales were already on his mind. And so the realization that OU was alien technology came naturally. Loeb repeatedly claims, without evidence, that we are on the cusp of a revolution in space flight with the technology needed to begin launching these craft quote only a few years away. I should note that in order to get this light sail idea to work, you need to take the entire nuclear energy supply of the United States and about 100 gigawatts, use it to power a laser for a dozen minutes, about a quadrillion times longer than we can operate. Our current powerful lasers aim it with precision through the earth's atmosphere and hit a nearly perfectly reflect, reflective light sail to send this attached spacecraft to Proxima Centauri in a few decades. If the spacecraft weighs no more than a paper clip because we are quote nearly quote capable of developing this technology, then aliens must do it on the regular Loeb claims and hence is likely to be an alien artifact. Essentially, nobody in the astronomical community agrees with Loeb's claims.

Instead, they focus on as a natural object of study. Loeb first made his claims in 2018 letter. Despite comparatively little experience in studying small solar system bodies, actual experts in small solar system bodies thoroughly refuted Loeb's statements about A and moved on with their lives. In response, Loeb wrote this book. Anyone who disagrees with Loeb's assertions is branded with the labels arrogant, lacking in curiosity, lacking in humility and closing ranks. No less than three times, Loeb brings up Galileo's house arrest at the hands of the Catholic Church, but makes sure to reassure the reader that he's not actually comparing himself to Galileo, just that Galileo was a genius and the church was arrogant and lacking in curiosity and humility. Leaving aside Loeb's misunderstanding of the Galileo affair, this argument doesn't hold water. Yes, there have been people in history who were right in the face of institutional dismissal. There also been countless others who were told they were wrong and who were actually wrong.

Loeb does not bring those people into this discussion. Loeb frequently finds himself bewildered and perplexed that his colleagues don't immediately recognize the validity of his arguments and even more surprised to find that the vast majority of scientists simply aren't interested in hunting for aliens. In the obverse, you're not allowed to follow your own curiosities. He frequently charges astronomers with a crime of arrogance. But when they do exactly what good scientists do and admit that their models are flawed and incomplete, he's more than happy to quote them, saying so the shortcomings of his own hypothesis are not explored. Loeb conflates disagreement with dismissal. Science is not anathema to aliens, as he claims it's anathema to bad ideas. Astronomers around the world do not agree with his light a hypothesis for a but A Loeb unfairly exaggerates this into an entire broad brush dismissal of the existence of aliens altogether. Loeb says that it is quote the height of arrogance to conclude that we are unique.

End quote. But nobody is saying that in typical conspiracy theory fashions, Loeb ignores a reasonable criticism, maybe is not a light sail and instead puts an unreasonable one. Maybe there are no aliens into the mouths of his critics. Against this backdrop, Loeb asks us to take a bet similar to Pascal's wager. Um, it's better to believe in God because the consequences of atheism are dire because you'll die and go to hell and burn forever. Quote in much the same way I would argue humanity bets its future on whether is extraterrestrial technology or not. End quote. For Loeb, believing in the existence of aliens would transform humanity, causing us to stop fighting with each other, expand our desire to fund scientific research, including most important late light sail technology, and take the quote the giant leap forward from our quote plotting evolution. He even muses on the structure of special UN commissions to deal with alien communication. I mean, Yeah, I watch Star Trek, too.

But Loeb's wager falls apart for the same reason that Pascals did. It does not offer any proof of the existence of aliens, does not emit other possibilities outside of the false dichotomy, cannot guarantee the positive outcomes that it promises and ignores the costs of such beliefs. Curiously, when Loeb outlines his vision for the future of science, all the new money flows in the direction of his own personal interests. Loeb is a fine writer. His explanations of con plex scientific concepts are clear and straightforward. But beyond the granular level, the book is a mess. Once the discussion is over and done with in surprisingly short order, Loeb meanders from topic to unrelated topic. Most frustratingly, the book lacks any cohesive narrative or literary momentum. For example, we read lengthy nonsecular discussions about black holes in the first stars for no other reason that the lobe wrote papers on those subjects. When it comes to most chapters, I have very few scholarly criticisms because there is little scholarly content.

The vast majority of the pages are devoted to loam, speculative musings about the future of humanity, the nature of aliens and random guessimate. Uh, for example, a calculation guessing how many light sails in alien civilization could launch with a supernova. We read about his thoughts on Fermi's Paradox. A Gutenberg DNA, printers, whatever those are in pan sperm. Uh, the last adventure that perhaps was deliberately sent to see life on other planets. Which would mean it's not a buoy left anyway. Never mind. Loeb repeatedly warns us that if we don't take him seriously, we will end up destroying ourselves. Quote. We might come to feel as though we are part of a single, unified team, humanity, and stop worrying and worrying over mundane issues like geographical borders and separate economies. End quote. These are all fanciable discussions, but come from nowhere interesting and lead nowhere useful. For example, Loba goes to believe his hypothesis about a Mu Mu because he personally finds it impossible for life to have originated on the Earth. Naturally, and that's it.

To back up his wager and convince us to take the bet. Loeb simply makes statements without any evidence or reasoning, like saying, quote. It is most likely that we will encounter relics of extra retrial technologies before establishing contact with any living civilization. Loeb himself admits that he doesn't understand the phrase extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. He repeatedly brings up hypothetical scenarios to strengthen his argument. For example, if we had found evidence for life on Mars, then his hypothesis wouldn't seem so radical. But despite using Bazian statistics in some of his papers, he seems to miss the deeper lesson. Of course, if we had prior evidence for aliens, then additional evidence would not have to be as strong to make the case. But we don't. And so it does. Loeb raises a few laudable points. His arguments that younger students have to follow mainstream research or risk their careers is spot on. He insists that scientists should be in the media more and that the public should view the everyday quote messiness of science. And he's right. Loeb criticizes the emphasis in particle physics on unproven string and supersymmetry theories, which is valid when Loeb is not disparaging his fellow astronomers.

At one point, he calls any survey not dedicated to SETI low key and brushes the many areas of astrophysics as fashionable thought bubbles. His tone and vision for the future is relentlessly optimistic and hopeful of a welcome relief in a pandemic ridden world. And yet Loeb squanders all of these opportunities for deeper discussions on the relationship between science and the public. Every time Loeb begins to approach an interesting topic and you feel on the cusp of greater understanding, he transitions into his favorite topic, Avi Loeb. The book is nauseatingly narcissistic. Besides the frequent diversions into Loeb's personal life, including the fact that he gets his best ideas in the shower, we hear all about his insights and accomplishments. It's always his quote. Original research. Um, all research by any scientist is, by definition, original that takes center stage. Other human beings in the Avi verse are just supporting actors. His post docs and graduate students do not have independent thought but merely flesh out his ideas.

Uh, other astronomers are mentioned so that they can react to Loeb's musings. If they disagree with him, they only serve to highlight the tortured prophet that he is the hundreds of astronomers who have studied, um, get subsumed into a collective We Loeb did not participate in any of the observations. In a recent scientific American interview, Loeb admitted that he envisioned Brad Pitt playing him. When Loeb imagines what aliens are like with their wisdom and humility and boundless curiosity, they seem suspiciously like the man that he sees in the mirror. Reading the book gives the impression that Loeb works in a vacuum. You hear about his research on a particular topic, but other scientists are largely ignored. At the end of the book, there are a total of 23 citations to the work of others, Um, and actually those are collaborators of Loeb and 106 citations to his own papers. The discussions on said. Topics are light, brief and far from illuminating and sometimes downright wrong. For example, lob frequently claims that said, he is not taken seriously and consistently underfunded because the majority of astronomers are too conservative in their thinking right after discussing the history of SETI research and our current efforts to detect biosignatures on other worlds.

When Jill Charter, the living SETI legend, called Lo out on his inaccurate portrayal in a recent panel discussion, Loeb took the opportunity to explain her own field to her. There's no doubt that Loeb is prolific. With over 700 papers to his name, he held the astronomy department chair at Harvard until shortly after the publication of this book and serves on numerous committees and advisory panels. So then one is forced to ask several questions. Given his influential position in academia, how often has he promoted work that he himself wasn't interested in? If he's so invested in bringing the messiness of science to the public, how often has he passed the microphone to any of his collaborators or critics? If he finds engagement with the media so un pleasurable, as he claims, then why does the book offer repeated tales of his engagement with the media? And why has astrophysicist and blogger Ethan Siegel received 74 unsolicited emails from Loeb and his team since 2018? If he finds it so lamentable that scientists can't engage in unorthodox research directions?

And when when he recounts that his own students point out that it's easier for him due to the security of his position than it is for them, why does he simply state That is a dilemma indeed, and drop the discussion never to resume it When outlining his vision of the future, this general tone deafness reveals itself in three striking passages in the first, he envisions that future Martian colonists would probably look like the hardy, industrious, capable Israeli farmers of his hometown. There might might be a segment of the human population to take issue with that. At another point, he asks us to imagine the rewards of the world not going to war in 1939. Here's a hint. It involves a lot of light sales in Loeb's alternate history. Either Hitler never existed, which is useless. Or the allied powers let the Third Reich run rampant over Europe, which is disgusting. The last example I will I will leave alone is own words. Quote. Japanese soldiers were willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their Emperor Hirohito.

But in the view of our recent realization that there are approximately a Zeta billions upon billions of habitable planets in the observable universe, the emperor's status cannot be more significant than that of an ant hugging a single grain of sand on a huge beach. If aliens are gods, then is their messenger and Avi Loeb is their prophet. He demands that we take his hypothesis seriously when he doesn't take it seriously enough himself to fully flesh it out. He insists on recognizing the benefits of a humble perspective to the cosmos, yet insults his colleagues for the crime of disagreeing with him and never admits any flaws. In his own reasoning, he asks us to take a chance on aliens because he personally believes that they exist and have visited the solar system. Taking advantage of a lack of observational data to push a particular narrative, Lobs celebrates the innate curiosity that every scientist should nurture, yet ignores the skepticism that sharpens that curiosity into a powerful probe of nature, perhaps, is an artifact of a technologically advanced alien civilization.

We'll never know. But Loeb does not make a convincing case in the book, and the speculations that fill every other chapter do not advance any interesting scientific discussion. But perhaps I'm just not humble or creative enough to understand. That's the end of my review will continue to be an object of interest and speculation. When I personally talk to a lot of my colleagues in academia, uh, they can't speak out about Avi Loeb because he's he's in a powerful position. He's on funding review panels, grant committees, the works, Avi Loeb complains about the man, but he is quite literally the man one of the most powerful as astronomers in the world. And he holds control over purse strings. Uh, yes, I'm connected to academia. I've I've research appointments, uh, adjunct positions at universities and research institutes. Uh, but those are unpaid. I pay pay my bills from patreon. 00, wait. I already did a page. Um, so that does give me a little bit more freedom to speak out because Avi Loeb has no control over me and 00, don't worry.

He's He's said horrible things about me and also wrote a response to my review of his book, which I am not going to read out loud, but it's also publicly available if you want to read it. The current best guess is that is, uh, a nitrogen iceberg, a piece of a Pluto like planet broken off. Uh, erosion gave it a weird shape over the course of millions of years and nitrogen Outgassing wouldn't show up in a coma. Uh, obviously, Avi Loeb disagrees with this hypothesis, but that's that's the current, best naturalistic explanation. Ultimately, there is no single satisfying explanation for a Avi Loeb says that scientists aren't creative because they don't think is an alien spaceship. Um, the real. The real creativity in science is comes from our constraints. We study the universe in terms of physics. In terms of natural explanations. Aliens are easy, aliens are lazy. It could be aliens. But I have a feeling that if if we were to spot evidence for alien life, it would be pretty obvious.

It would be much more obvious than 11 days of messy observations of a small rock. And I don't think it would be a matter of scientific debate. If we found evidence for intelligent life. I think it would. We would all agree right away. Scientists are creative Scientists are brilliant. Um, the world that science sees is is beautiful and and challenging and and difficult to explain. And that's that's the fun in it is. We don't just get to dream up any hypothesis we want and leave it at that. We have to confront it with the evidence. We have to make it plausible. We have to find natural explanations that that's hard. That's what makes science so hard, Uh, but also fun and rewarding, because then the explanations you do have are grounded in the same universe that we observe in the same universe that we that we live in. And we get to be a part of that story. We get to be a part of that universe. As for itself, it's doomed to wander the interstellar void for eons to come. And as for us on earth, well, life goes on.

Thank you to Steve T on email. Mariah A. On email John Kay on email for the questions that led to today's episode Thank you to my top patreon contributors. In fact, all my patreon con contributors. My top ones are Justin Z, Justin G, Chris L Barbeque Duncan M, Coy D, Justin Z, Nate H, Andrew F, NAIA Aon, M Rob Loyalty, Justin Lewis, MBG, John W and Alexis at patreon dot com slash PM. Sutter What an intense episode. Keep those questions coming. That's ask us spaceman at gmail dot com. Go to the website. Ask us spaceman dot com. Follow me on social media at PMA Sutter and now we'll see you next time for more complete knowledge of time and space and maybe aliens

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