Show HN: Are interstellar visitors alien probes?https://hyperbolic.lucent.tools
There was a lot of debate about whether the 3 interstellar objects found might not be natural. Most of it cherry-picked a few oddities and claimed decisively, for or against. I don't have a strong opinion, and don't trust my eye for coincidence or to spot astrology-like "planetary alignment", so I simulated millions of random paths through the solar system and counted how many came closer than the 3 known objects, either to the planets or to or from nearby stars. 1I and 2I look like chance. Loeb et al. put 3I's planetary passes at 1 in 20,000. Scored against all eight planets and random arriv…