A tiny new moon has been discovered around the planet Neptune, the
first new moon to be discovered around Neptune in a decade. The moon
was discovered by Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute while poring
over some data from the Hubble Space Telescope.
For now the moon has the drab name S/2004 N1, and its size is
estimated by scientists as about 20 kilometers. This new moon orbits
between two much larger moons, named Proteus and Larissa, with sizes
of about 400 and 200 kilometers respectively.
Scientists think that the existence of a moon this small in this
orbit is surprising. It seems surprising that a moon this small could
have avoided both of two different fates which would have eliminated
it from its current position: (1) the fate of falling into the much
larger nearby moon Proteus because of gravitational attraction; (2)
the fate of being struck by an asteroid early in the formation of the
solar system, when asteroids were flying around much more commonly.
Referring
to the early solar system and the newly discovered Neptune moon, a
New Scientist article says, “In the post-Triton
chaos, such a small rock should have been swept up to become part of
Proteus, or broken up by interloping asteroids sometime after the
system settled down.” So the existence of the new moon is
something of a riddle.
Now as long as we have a cosmic
mystery, I think we are entitled to think outside of the box, and
ask: is it possible that the new moon of Saturn may be a recent
arrival to the solar system – perhaps a spaceship from another
star?
This question is not quite as
outrageous as it may seem at first. If the new moon were, say, 1000
kilometers in width, then it would be pretty ridiculous to suggest
even a remote possibility that it came from another star.
However, a size of twenty kilometers
(about 12 miles) is actually within the size range imagined by
scientists for one type of interstellar spacecraft: an artificial
world spaceship, originally called the Bernal Sphere.
The Bernal Sphere was originally
conceived in 1929 by John Desmond Bernal as a mobile artificial world
which could travel from one star to another. In a web page on the
Bernal Sphere, the British Interplanetary Society lists a size of 16
kilometers as its proposed size, and mentions it having a population
of 20,000 people. Such a traveling artificial world could be created
by hollowing out an asteroid, or it could be constructed from
materials created from asteroids or lunar materials.
A Bernal Sphere (which could also be a
cylinder) might create artificial gravity for its inhabitants by
simply rotating, thereby creating artificial gravity through
centrifugal force. Such a spaceship would not be designed to travel
from one star to another in a single lifetime. It would instead be
designed to reach another star after a long slow journey lasting many
generations.
The same web page mentions some work
done by Bond and Martin to create detailed engineering specs for a
cylindrical artificial world spaceship similar to a Bernal Sphere.
Below are pictures of the spaceships they designed. In their design,
the radius of these rotating cylinders is 5 kilometers, meaning the
total length of the proposed spaceships is some 250 kilometers.
Credit: Adrian Mann/British Interplanetary Society
In light of such plans, it can be said
that there is nothing unreasonable about the idea that aliens might
have created an artificial world spaceship of 20 kilometers, and
parked it in orbit somewhere in the solar system. But is it
conceivable that some alien civilization might have had the
technology to do such a thing?
The universe is about 13 billion years
old, and astronomers say that intelligent life could have evolved on
other planets millions or even billions of years ago. When scientists
imagine what a civilization could do if it were millions of years
more advanced than ours, they imagine astonishing engineering feats
such as the dismantling of planets or the construction of spheres
surrounding an entire star (Dyson spheres). Compared to such
possibilities, the creation of a traveling world spacecraft of 20
kilometers is a relatively modest task.
In short, the creation of a traveling
world spaceship of about 20 kilometers in size is something that
would be similar to what Earth scientists have already envisioned
doing, and we have reason to suspect that many alien civilizations
might be capable of undertaking such a task (and also tasks that are
vastly more difficult).
So is it possible, then, that S/2004
N1 (the newly discovered moon of Neptune)
is an alien spaceship, a traveling world spacecraft that originated
in another solar system? Yes, it is possible. But it is not likely.
Even though the existence of a moon of this size in this orbit is
surprising to scientists, one would need more basis for suspicion
before drawing any extraordinary conclusion about the moon.
But
I suggest that this moon may be worthy of further investigation, to
rule out the possibility of an artificial origin.
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