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by dongobongo 1900 days ago
Regarding Omouamoua, we just observed for the first time in human history, a cylinder or plate shaped object from another star flying through our solar system with questionable orbital velocities (we are not quite sure how to explain a small acceleration it had). A cylinder/plate is not a low energy geometry (things like to turn into spherical type objects over time), it's from another solar system, we don't know very much about it. How could you not want to visit it?

It's an opportunity to pull off a speed and distance record, visit something from another solar system, resolve big research questions about its shape, composition, origin and rule out any theories of its possible intelligent origin. They are also pursuing it to showcase the benefits of nuclear heat for space.

1 comments

Sol is the name of our star, so there is only one Solar system.
solar system (noun)

earth science - the sun and the group of planets that move around it, or a similar system somewhere else in the universe

(Definition of the solar system from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/solar-sy...

This is a more of an etymology issue than what you think, if you need to look up the word etymology, I'm referring to the the history of the words and not suggesting any changing meaning