What Should We Do If Extraterrestrials Show Up?

Re:What Should We Do If Extraterrestrials Show Up? by happytoexplain on Sunday April 18, 2021 @08:30PM (#26857979)

> it took ‘Oumuamua more than 10,000 years to traverse the entire solar system

Is there an error in this sentence or is the popular understanding (that it passed through briefly, for some definition of brief) incorrect?

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Re:What Should We Do If Extraterrestrials Show Up? by bitcurious on Sunday April 18, 2021 @08:51PM (#26858116)

I think the solar system as defined here extends out to the edge of the Oort Cloud.

>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud

> The outer limit of the Oort cloud defines the cosmographic boundary of the Solar System

> The Oort cloud...is a theoretical cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals proposed to surround the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 au (0.03 to 3.2 light-years).

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Re:What Should We Do If Extraterrestrials Show Up? by happytoexplain on Sunday April 18, 2021 @08:59PM (#26858155)

That explains it. I always forget the orders of magnitude involved between the smallest colloquial definitions of "the solar system" and the largest technical definitions. It looks like it was only in the planetary region for under a decade.

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Re:What Should We Do If Extraterrestrials Show Up? by optimalsolver on Sunday April 18, 2021 @08:44PM (#26858069)

10K years is a blink of an eye in cosmic terms.

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Re:What Should We Do If Extraterrestrials Show Up? by edgyquant on Sunday April 18, 2021 @08:43PM (#26858062)

It took 10,000 years from what I’ve read, which is a brief period for an astronomical timeframe

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