Traffic jam ahead. Turn left at the next solar system, follow the detour.
Travelers in this splotch of the universe, beware. The paths through Space-Time in the Solar System appear to be crowded with fast-moving objects, many of them coming from outside the neighborhood. (Will someone please build a wall?) Oumuamua, that elongate object that whizzed past us not too long ago, appears, according to some Harvard guys, to be just one of maybe four quintillion such objects. Anyway, that’s what Avi Loeb and Carson Ezell * say is possible: Traffic of Beyond Monumental Proportions, traffic that makes California’s freeways, Washington D. C.’s Beltway, and Pittsburgh’s Parkway (strange term for a road on which no parking is permitted), all look like uncrowded paths in a county park during a weekday in winter. Yep. Four quintillion vehicles of some kind. That’s a bunch of zeroes after a “4,” 18 of them.
Sorry, I don’t know the math that led them to their numerical result. They’re both astronomers, so I assume they used some numbers and stuff to derive their result. I’m sure, however, that they didn’t rely on simple observation, because the only one of the four quintillion such objects ever observed was Oumuamua, “Scout” in Hawaiian.
But unless one of those four quintillion objects is headed my way, I don’t care. If the chances of seeing one are so rare that we have spotted only one since the invention of the telescope, then the chances of being hit by one seem remote at best. Anyway, seems that there are other invasions that might have a more direct impact on my life—and yours.
With light pollution making stars less visible to the naked eye and with so many of us looking at earthly rather and celestial things, none of us will see the other Oumuamuas that are out there. And since very few humans will rise above the light-polluted night skies, visit a “dark zone” like Tierra del Fuego or North Korea (where there is a population but just not one with much electrical lighting), chances of seeing such a visitor are “none to slim,” and not slim to none.
But you will likely encounter a visitor from another country during the current mass migration through a porous border. And that encounter will occur even though the number of human visitors pales by comparison to Loeb’s and Ezell’s celestial travelers. The estimated U.S. southern border encounters of 2.5 million is 0.000000000000625% as many visitors as those traveling through the Solar System from other solar systems. Yet, the likelihood of your encounter with a border-crosser seems greater than encountering an object like “Oumuamua.”
*https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/there-may-be-4-quintillion-alien-spacecraft-buzzing-in-our-solar-system/ar-AA13qQNM
Travelers in this splotch of the universe, beware. The paths through Space-Time in the Solar System appear to be crowded with fast-moving objects, many of them coming from outside the neighborhood. (Will someone please build a wall?) Oumuamua, that elongate object that whizzed past us not too long ago, appears, according to some Harvard guys, to be just one of maybe four quintillion such objects. Anyway, that’s what Avi Loeb and Carson Ezell * say is possible: Traffic of Beyond Monumental Proportions, traffic that makes California’s freeways, Washington D. C.’s Beltway, and Pittsburgh’s Parkway (strange term for a road on which no parking is permitted), all look like uncrowded paths in a county park during a weekday in winter. Yep. Four quintillion vehicles of some kind. That’s a bunch of zeroes after a “4,” 18 of them.
Sorry, I don’t know the math that led them to their numerical result. They’re both astronomers, so I assume they used some numbers and stuff to derive their result. I’m sure, however, that they didn’t rely on simple observation, because the only one of the four quintillion such objects ever observed was Oumuamua, “Scout” in Hawaiian.
But unless one of those four quintillion objects is headed my way, I don’t care. If the chances of seeing one are so rare that we have spotted only one since the invention of the telescope, then the chances of being hit by one seem remote at best. Anyway, seems that there are other invasions that might have a more direct impact on my life—and yours.
With light pollution making stars less visible to the naked eye and with so many of us looking at earthly rather and celestial things, none of us will see the other Oumuamuas that are out there. And since very few humans will rise above the light-polluted night skies, visit a “dark zone” like Tierra del Fuego or North Korea (where there is a population but just not one with much electrical lighting), chances of seeing such a visitor are “none to slim,” and not slim to none.
But you will likely encounter a visitor from another country during the current mass migration through a porous border. And that encounter will occur even though the number of human visitors pales by comparison to Loeb’s and Ezell’s celestial travelers. The estimated U.S. southern border encounters of 2.5 million is 0.000000000000625% as many visitors as those traveling through the Solar System from other solar systems. Yet, the likelihood of your encounter with a border-crosser seems greater than encountering an object like “Oumuamua.”
*https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/there-may-be-4-quintillion-alien-spacecraft-buzzing-in-our-solar-system/ar-AA13qQNM
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