Space rock or flashy alien technology? we’re going to find out

The following is an excerpt from our Lost in Spacetime newsletter. Every month we give a keyboard to one or two physicists to tell you about exciting ideas from their corner of the universe. You can subscribe to Lost in Spacetime for free here.

Imaginary realities are addictive drugs. These belief systems can heal the frustrations of reality and, like a physical drug, can ease pain or make difficult situations more bearable. They can unite communities with shared spiritual beliefs or lead to terrorism and hatred. They satisfy an emotional need. If that need is to demonstrate mathematical virtuosity with minimal limitations of the physical world, then the imaginary reality could include extra dimensions or a multiverse. If you need to be liked on social media, this may include promoting populist views.

Science is filled with imaginary realities. Nature is one version of reality among many possible ones. The scientific method, pioneered by Galileo Galilei, requires an independent arbiter to help us understand reality, namely experimental data. Such data often limits the range of possibilities, helping us get closer to the real world. It can also exclude beautiful ideas that are not realized in nature. Truth and beauty are not necessarily the same thing. Finding out the truth requires submission to experimental data and the rejection of wishful thinking. But it is stubbornly difficult for most people to lay down their heads of wishful thinking under the guillotine of data, regardless of whether they are engaged in politics, spirituality or science.

The clearest examples in science are those where the evidence indicated that the dominant paradigm was an imaginary reality. So it was believed that the Sun was made of the same material as the Earth, until Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin realized that it was made mostly of hydrogen. Her doctoral committee chairman Henry Norris Russell tried to dissuade her from including this statement in her dissertation. So was the notion that the universe was made of the same matter as the sun, until Fritz Zwicky realized that dark matter was the dominant constituent. His discovery was ridiculed by leading astronomers for 40 years. And that was the concept of causality in classical physics until quantum mechanical entanglement was realized. Albert Einstein resisted this as “creepy action at a distance”.

And so could the notion that interstellar objects are just natural rocks, like hydrogen or nitrogen icebergs. Or it could be another imaginary reality that is about to collapse.

The Galileo Project, which I direct, is ready to find out. Just as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) used scientific data to scan the universe and listen for potential electromagnetic signals that could indicate advanced extraterrestrial life, the Galileo project will do the same, but with a focus on physical objects.

Our plan is divided into two complementary areas of study. First, we want to better understand Unexplained Territorial Phenomena (UTPs). The Office of the Director of National Intelligence of the United States collected hundreds of examples of UAPs and was only able to explain a subset of them. And second, we’re going to explore the origin of interstellar objects (ISOs), which look different than typical asteroids and comets. When ‘Oumuamua – the first interstellar object to be discovered passing through our solar system – was discovered in 2017, it soon became clear that it was different from any other object we had seen. Its shape, trajectory and reflectivity made it especially unusual. But in the short time that it was visible in our telescopes, little data was collected about it. The next time it appears, Project Galileo will be ready to take a closer look at it.

In the spirit of scientists like Payne-Gaposhkin and Zwicky, our Galileo project is gathering new data – our instruments are now observing and listening to the sky. When the next ‘Oumuamua-like object appears, we plan to get a high-resolution image of it.

For the love of evidence

Soon we will also conduct an expedition to search for fragments of the first interstellar meteor near Papua New Guinea. CNEOS 2014-01-08 exploded over the Bismarck Sea in 2014 about 200 km north of Manus Island. Tiny fragments from it, less than a millimeter in size, should now lie on the seabed. For 10 days, we will be using sleds equipped with magnets, cameras and flashlights to try and assemble them. If successful, we will have the first pieces of an interstellar object in our hands. We will carefully analyze them and share data with the scientific community – data that can destroy many imaginary realities.

Imaginary realities can consume the oxygen in the room. Galileo was put under house arrest when he challenged the imaginary reality of a geocentric world. The best way to keep our sanity is to stick with experimental tests as our guide in the first place. Physics is a learning experience, a dialogue with nature, not a monologue. Our love for nature is not abstract or platonic, but is based on direct physical interaction with it.

Nature is not obligated to satisfy our emotional needs. Feeling alone does not mean that we have neighbors. But we can check if we have neighbors by looking in the windows, and not endlessly repeating the question of Enrico Fermi: “Where is everyone?”. Nature is also not obliged to satisfy our intellectual needs. Figuring out the most important understanding of nature—are we alone as a sentient species among the stars—may not require complex mathematical gymnastics. It only requires looking up.

Our egos can make us ignore facts that don’t flatter us. We would rather be at the center of the universe as the protagonists of a cosmic play. But in fact, the Earth is moving around the Sun, which is moving around the center of the Milky Way, moving away from all other galaxies at an accelerated speed. We took the stage at the end of the cosmic play, and we’d better look for other actors who could tell us what this play is about.

The search for scientific knowledge should not be focused on us. It is about knowing the reality around us. Our starting point should be humility, driven by intellectual curiosity and based on what we have already learned. We go down this path as children, but something goes wrong when we become adults and pretend that we know more than we really know.

In his time there was no greater connoisseur of the stars than Henry Norris Russell. There was no greater quantum mechanic in his world than Albert Einstein. But both were completely wrong in a fundamental aspect of their craft. Both promoted imaginary realities that supported their core communities. In order to learn something new, we must retain the sense of wonder we all started with as children. Evidence leads to a better relationship with reality. Climate change will happen if we do nothing to fix it, regardless of our narrative. The sun will evaporate all the oceans on Earth, even if we all wear glasses that reflect the imaginary reality in which we live comfortably in the metaverse.

Acceptance of experimental data arbitration is a survival mechanism. Natural selection favors those who adapt to the real world. The dinosaurs of the world are disappearing because they are not humble enough to search the blue skies for new evidence of the existential risks they face in real life.

AviLeb — Galileo project leader and author Extraterrestrial world: the first signs of intelligent life outside the Earth.

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