re: Harvard's astronomy dept chair is more convinced than ever that Oumuamua is alien craft

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its trajectory cannot be explained by any natural forces in space.

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Well, according to Einstein’s general relativity, gravity isn’t a force; it’s an effect of mass warping spacetime. But it certainly does explain the object’s trajectory. It’s random and subject to the influence of any gravity well it comes close to, such as the sun.

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Of course the object is influenced by the gravity of the sun, and surrounding planets, but what he is saying is that when analyzed mathematically the path traveled by this object is not the path that would result from just the gravitational influence of the sun and planets, some other force such as on board propulsion would have to be contributing to it.