Motus Mentis

You may recall the curious object Oumuamua, a visitor from beyond the solar system that passed by the Sun on a hyperbolic orbit late last year. It was no ordinary asteroid: it had a strange pattern of reflection that suggested it was a long, skinny cylinder, and as it left our solar system it appeared to be accelerating.

Now a pair of researchers from Harvard — one of whom is the chair of the astronomy department — have published a paper suggesting that it might have been an artifact known as “light sail”. Learn more here.