Professor Says ETs May Hitch Rides on Rogue Planets
The search for extraterrestrials in space continues as a new theory is proposed: Could rogue planets be used as spacecraft by alien hitchhikers?
Free-floating “rogue” planets are interstellar objects with planetary masses that are not gravitationally bound to a star. Scientists predict there could be billions of free-floating rogue plants in space.
With this in mind, Irina Romanovskaya, a professor of physics and astronomy at Houston Community College just published a new study proposing aliens could hitch a ride on these rogue planets.
She writes, “I propose that extraterrestrial civilizations may also use free-floating planets as interstellar transportation to reach, explore and colonize other planetary systems. I discuss how extraterrestrial civilizations may travel from their home worlds to free-floating planets, and how they may transfer from their free-floating planets to other planetary systems.”
And as Romanovskaya wrote in an email to VICE, “Some advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, if they exist, might hitch a ride on free-floating planets… which is why I call such hypothetical civilizations Cosmic Hitchhikers.”
Is this idea so far-fetched? Or could it be possible?
Nick Pope worked for the UK’s Ministry of Defense covering UFOs, he said, “Alien civilizations might use rogue planets as a means to travel, they might hitch a ride — why not?” Pope asked. “I think one can’t help but think back to the whole mystery of Oumuamua, which professor Avi Loeb at Harvard thinks is artificial.”
“Does that tie in with the sort of thing being postulated in this paper? Some sort of planet, but if it’s being used by extraterrestrials, would they add on something to it? Would they slap a propulsion system on it? Or just drift through the cosmos on an interstellar object? (It’s) fascinating speculation and food for thought,” he said.
Romanovskaya also gave advice on how to find them. She argues that a technologically advanced civilization would leave techno-signatures such as infrared and electromagnetic radiation or low-frequency radio emissions.
And an alien civilization that colonized one planetary system would use some of the same tactics to colonize more, and therefore, “wide-orbit exoplanets should be searched for extraterrestrial techno-signatures or artifacts.”
So far, this paper has been received as an interesting theory time will tell if the powers that be will take her advice and look at rogue planets for extraterrestrial hitchhikers.
Harvard Professor Avi Loeb Says Universe Created in a Lab
One of the greatest mysteries of our universe is the question of what existed before the Big Bang and how our universe was created. Could it have been created in a lab by a higher form of intelligence—an extraterrestrial intelligence?
Scientists have studied for years the possibilities that may have created the Big Bang; how our universe was created. Now, Avi Loeb, Harvard Professor of Science and author of “extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth,” proposes in his latest editorial for Scientific American that our universe may have been created in a lab.
Modern physics has a problem, we do not yet have a good understanding of how to unify quantum mechanics and gravity. If we did, we could in theory figure out how to create a “Big Bang.” This idea led professor Loeb to his theory.
“If we imagine a civilization that had science and technology for much more than a century like we did, then they could have arrived at a theory that unifies quantum mechanics and gravity, and if they figure out how the Big Bang can be created perhaps they could also produce it themselves in the laboratory,” Loeb said. “And if that happens then there is a very interesting possibility, just like in nature, for example, a chick comes out of an egg, becomes a chicken and lays another egg, and so forth. You can imagine a universe like ours giving birth to an intelligent civilization that can create a universe like the one that made it.”
Imagine if different civilizations were given a letter grade; professor Loeb puts us at a Grade C, while the more advanced civilizations have higher grades.
“One can, in principle, classify civilizations in the universe into different classes. Type C civilization is similar to ours where we rely on the sun to keep us alive and we are using our environment the way it was provided to us. But then one can imagine a civilization Type B, which is not dependent on the star next to which it was born, in. fact it can create a habitat that supports its life far away from the star,” Loeb said.
“You can imagine them creating a platform where a civilization can live happily, using nuclear energy supplied to it from nuclear reactors and not from the star that it happens to be born next to, that would be Type B. Then Type A civilizations would be those that are capable of recreating the astrophysical environment that they live in, in particular, the universe as a whole. So, creating a universe in the laboratory implies that you’re at the top of the class of civilizations in the universe. We haven’t reached that yet because we don’t have a quantum theory of gravity.”
