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<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>A building-size object called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/oumuamua" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Oumuamua</a> flew through the inner solar system in late 2017.</li><li>Telescopes observed the mysterious interloper, but scarce data has left questions open about the object's shape, size, and composition.</li><li>A few astronomers wonder whether it could be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/aliens" target="_blank" rel="noopener">alien</a>, but 'Oumuamua is most likely a "slightly weird" asteroid, comet, or space rock.</li><li>New space missions are being dreamed up to intercept the next interstellar object that visits our solar system.</li></ul><p>In 2016, something roughly the size of a skyscraper emerged from deep space and careened toward the inner solar system.</p><p>The mysterious object flew within about 15 million miles of our planet on October 14.</p><p>But it wasn't until four days later that humanity finally spotted it in telescope data. By then, it was moving away from the sun at a speed of more than 110,000 mph. It took another week for astronomers around the globe to point every tool they could in its direction.</p><p>Astronomers initially called their unprecedented catch "1I/2017 U1," with "I" standing for interstellar - or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oumuamua-comet-asteroid-object-origin-dwarf-stars-2018-9">from another star system</a>. The object was later dubbed 'Oumuamua, a Hawaiian name that's pronounced "oo moo-uh moo-uh" and means "a messenger from afar, arriving first."</p><p>'Oumuamua remains one of the most significant, confounding, and at times contentious astronomical discoveries in recent memory. Little is definitively known about its composition, weight, shape, or dimensions - it may be a <a href="https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/su201842" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3,300-foot-long</a> cigar, a city-block-size pancake, or something in-between.</p><p>"This one's gone forever. We have all the data we're ever going to have about 'Oumuamua," <a href="http://www.physics.nau.edu/~trilling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">David Trilling</a>, an astronomer at Northern Arizona University who led Spitzer Space Telescope observations of the object, told Business Insider. "Now it's trying to understand if we can tell a story. Do we know what's going on?"</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alien-signals-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence-study-2018-10">Smart aliens might live within 33,000 light-years of Earth. A new study explains why we haven't found them yet.</a></em></p><p>Enough doubt surrounds 'Oumuamua that at least one reputable astronomer and a few of his colleagues continue to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/interstellar-comet-asteroid-a2017-u1-evidence-2017-10">speculate about potential alien origins</a>. But nearly all other experts who have studied 'Oumuamua say the aliens hypothesis is extraordinarily unlikely.</p><p>Here's what we know about 'Oumuamua, why it probably isn't alien, and how astronomers are preparing for another interstellar object to unexpectedly sail through our solar system.</p><h2>How astronomers found and measured 'Oumuamua</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Researchers in 1976 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(76)90189-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">predicted</a> that other star systems were likely ejecting big asteroids and comets and flinging them toward our solar system, suggesting we could perhaps spot some in the future.</p><p>But the most recent estimate of how often such interstellar vagabonds would pay us a visit (and be detectable) was "bleak," <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aa5c8a">according to the authors of a study</a> published just months before 'Oumuamua was discovered. The odds, in fact, were low enough that practically no one was overtly looking for these space objects.</p><p>Then on October 19, 2017, Robert Weryk, a postdoctoral student at the University of Hawaii, discovered 'Oumuamua somewhat by accident.</p><p>Weryk was perusing a batch of data collected by an observatory called Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) that sits atop a mountain in Maui. The observatory scans the entire sky each night, allowing astronomers to compare fresh data to the previous evening's. Anything that's bright enough to detect and moving will thus <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1737d/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stand out</a>.</p><p>As Weryk <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/interstellar-space-rock/546371/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told The Atlantic</a> in November 2017, he initially thought the object was a typical asteroid. But after a glance at the previous evening's data, he realized it was unusual.</p><p>"I'd never expected to find something like this," he said.</p><p>Calculating the exact path of 'Oumuamua took about a week. The math showed it was an object from beyond - way, way beyond. Its orbit was "unbound" or loop-less, and it was making a checkmark-shaped trip through the solar system. It had entered from above the plane of the solar system, dipped close to and below the sun, and was exiting out the top.</p><p>This realization prompted Weryk, fellow astronomer Karen Meech, and others to launch a global effort to observe 'Oumuamua with as many powerful telescopes as possible before it vanished. More astronomers eventually followed suit, though with some delay.</p><p>"I was caught off-guard, and I think a lot of astronomers were, too," Trilling said. "It took a while for many of us to think, 'I should go look at it.' The delay was people thinking, 'Naw, it couldn't be from another solar system.'"</p><p>Because of this element of surprise, and the fact that <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/usa/news/eso1737/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">world-class</a> <a href="https://www.gemini.edu/node/12729" target="_blank" rel="noopener">observatories</a> are scheduled months or years ahead, it took a week or more for powerful telescopes to start looking at 'Oumuamua. (Hubble didn't observe it until January 2018, just before the object vanished from sight.)</p><p>No telescope imaged it in photographic detail, though. One observatory was equipped to do so - the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico - but nature had other plans.</p><p>"Unfortunately, the Arecibo Observatory missed the opportunity to determine the actual shape of 'Oumuamua due to Hurricane Maria, really bad timing," Abel Méndez, an astrobiologist at the University of Puerto Rico, told Business Insider.</p><h2>Is it a comet, asteroid, or something else?</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>The observations that were made suggest 'Oumuamua has a fairly uniform surface, is relatively dark, and has a reddish color (which is not unusual for deep-space objects).</p><p>Lacking any detailed photograph of 'Oumuamua, astronomers resorted to studying its brightness as the next-best method to deduce its shape. This is because any side of an object that faces the sun will reflect light; a longer side tends to reflect more light than a shorter side because it has a greater area. Repeating changes in brightness can also betray the rough dimensions and 3D-motion of a space object.</p><p>Early calculations suggest 'Oumuamua tumbles about once every eight hours and has a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/chasing-oumuamua" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cigar-shape</a>, with a large-to-small-dimension size ratio of roughly ten to one. That is abnormal.</p><p>"The most extreme bodies we know of in the solar system are three-to-one," Trilling said.</p><p>Another peculiarity is that on its way toward interstellar space, 'Oumuamua deviated from its predicted path by about 25,000 miles, according to observations from Hubble.</p><p>If 'Oumuamua were a typical comet, this might explain its change of direction: Comets that drift close to the sun warm up, which causes internal gases to evaporate. The shooting jets of these gases can act like small rocket engines, altering the path an object travels and the way it tumbles.</p><p>In such cases, the evaporating gases form a tail behind the rock. They can also cause big chunks of a comet to break off. But no tail or break-up of 'Oumuamua was definitively seen.</p><p>There was also another surprise from the Spitzer Space Telescope: It did not detect a heat signature. The fact that Spitzer was unable to detect that heat suggests 'Oumuamua is somewhat shinier than a normal object, since less warmth being absorbed means more sunlight is getting bounced away.</p><p>Trilling said "shiny" is relative, though -'Oumuamua could be as dark as "dirty slush" in a gutter, and that would be shinier than expected.</p><p>"We're not talking about a ball of tin foil flying through space," he said.</p><p>However, an extraordinary possibility - an unnatural object - did occur to some researchers, a few of whom chose to test the idea against the limited observations.</p><h2>Why it's probably not aliens - just a 'slightly weird' rock</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p><a href="https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Avi Loeb</a>, the chair of Harvard University's astronomy department, took <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/6-strange-facts-about-the-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the peculiarities</a> of 'Oumuamua as reason to pursue the remote possibility that 'Oumuamua might be alien in origin.</p><p>In December 2017, Loeb directed Breakthrough Listen (an effort to listen for alien signals that Loeb helps run) to point radio antennas <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oumuamua-object-radio-telescope-listens-signals-2017-12">toward 'Oumuamua</a>. No alien communications were detected.</p><p>In October 2018, Loeb and a colleague wondered <a href="https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aaeda8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in a study</a> whether the object might have a more extreme pancake-like shape. Based on mathematical analysis, they suggested it could perhaps be as thin as a sail that could be pushed by light (also called a lightsail), which might also explain the 0.1% change in direction found by Hubble.</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/breakthrough-starshot-laser-beam-power-2018-12">A startup is developing a 100-gigawatt laser to propel a probe to another star system. That may be powerful enough to 'ignite an entire city.'</a></em></p><p>Most recently, Loeb and an undergraduate student published a <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/aafe7c/meta" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brief study</a> suggesting 'Oumuamua might actually have a 50-to-1 size ratio if it's cigar-shaped, or a 20-to-1 ratio if it's more of a pancake.</p><p>Loeb defends his pursuit of the idea as a valid scientific argument, given the data available. In <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/advanced-extraterrestrials-as-an-approximation-to-god/?curator=MediaREDEF" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a blog post at Scientific American</a>, he wrote that humans spotting alien technology "might resemble an imaginary encounter of ancient cave people with a modern cell phone," at first interpreting it as "shiny rock" and not a "communication device."</p><p>However, <a href="https://www.eso.org/~ohainaut/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Olivier Hainaut</a>, an astronomer with the European Southern Observatory, told Business Insider that Loeb's latest paper is based on a misunderstanding of brightness data from <a href="https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aab370" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a study</a> that Hainaut co-authored. Hainaut added that Loeb's conclusions "collapse" when the uncertainty of the data is taken into account. Loeb and a co-author disputed this, claiming the uncertainty is not as great as Hainaut said.</p><p>Many researchers interviewed by Business Insider also noted that because the observations of 'Oumuamua were relatively distant, limited, and filled with gaps, there's not nearly enough data to reasonably make extraordinary claims (which, as Carl Sagan once quipped, require extraordinary evidence).</p><p>Hainaut thinks the object is most likely a "slightly weird" space rock, as does Trilling.</p><p>"All of the evidence is consistent with a rock," Trilling said. "We've never seen an alien spaceship - we have no idea what that evidence would look like. So I think it's just a rock."</p><p>Trilling said he accepts the possibility, however remote, that Loeb and his colleagues' "extreme" ideas could eventually be borne out.</p><p>"I don't have any direct evidence that says it has to be a rock and it cannot an alien spacecraft," he said. "The only way to do that is to go visit it."</p><p>But for now, Trilling explained that it's most logical to side with hundreds of years of astronomical research.</p><h2>How to catch the next 'Oumuamua</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Since 'Oumuamua, astronomers have made adjustments at major observatories to allow for more rapid-turnaround observations of the next rare interstellar object that comes to town.</p><p>"With this one, we were taken fairly by surprise," Hainaut said. "With the next one, we are ready."</p><p>The research community has also reconsidered how often things like 'Oumuamua might visit the solar system. Trilling and others published <a href="https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aa9989" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a study</a> suggesting that current observatories may see an interstellar interloper about once every five years. By the mid-2020s - after new telescopes come online that are designed to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neocam-mission-not-fully-funded-nasa-2017-1">look for Earth-threatening asteroids</a> - they might be spotted at a rate of once per year.</p><p>This, in turn, has led multiple groups of researchers to wonder if a small spacecraft could be readied to chase down another interstellar visitor like 'Oumuamua and study it up-close. Hainaut is part of one of the groups researching that idea.</p><p>"We had a workshop on this in October, and at the beginning of the workshop we said, 'This is impossible.' But after one week of hard work, we realized it's not impossible anymore, it's just difficult," Hainaut said. "Impossible? That's a problem. Difficult? As a first approximation, that just means expensive."</p><p>There's also a chance that, decades from now, a project called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/starshot-proxima-centauri-habitable-planet-2016-8">Breakthrough Starshot</a> that Loeb is part of might resolve the question of what 'Oumuamua is and is not.</p><p>Starshot aims to propel <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/breakthrough-starshot-sprite-spacecraft-launch-2017-7">tiny spacecraft</a> to another star system <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/breakthrough-starshot-laser-beam-power-2018-12">with powerful lasers</a>, perhaps at around 20% <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-fast-speed-light-travels-earth-moon-mars-nasa-2019-1">the speed of light</a>. Such robots could also hypothetically be sent to catch up to 'Oumuamua in deep space.</p><p>"The Breakthrough Starshot is extremely interesting. The problem is that the laser technology that is required is far from being ready," Hainaut said. "I hope it will be one day."</p><div><div style="position:relative; padding-bottom:calc(56.25% + 44px)"></div></div><div><div style="position:relative; padding-bottom:calc(56.25% + 44px)"></div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-discover-first-interstellar-object-asteroid-oumuamua-2017-11">Astronomers have discovered a bizarre-looking object that came from outside our solar system</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

A bizarre interstellar object called 'Oumuamua continues to perplex astronomers a year after it vanished. Here's why a few scientists still wonder if it was alien.

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source">Shutterstock</p></div>A PAIR of middle-aged tourists (see <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/02/dennis-titos-mission-mars">previous post</a>) are not the only thing headed for <keyword id="47638" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mars">Mars</keyword>. Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) is also on its way. Discovered on January 3rd, some calculations of its orbit, <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/02/28/mars_impact_the_red_planet_may_get_hit_by_a_comet_in_october_2014.html">according to Phil Plait, the rather good “Bad Astronomer”</a>, have it passing 37,000km above the surface of the planet in October 2014—roughly the height at which communication satellites orbit Earth, and a remarkably close shave by cosmic standards. An <a href="http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=C%2F2013%20A1;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=1;rad=0#cad">official NASA website</a> puts the most likely “close-approach” distance between the comet and Mars at something more like 100,000km.</p>
<p>But the minimum close-approach distance is zero. <keyword id="51550" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="comets">Comets</keyword> do not move smoothly on their tracks like ball bearings or planets. The gases that blow off their surfaces as the sun warms them up push them hither and yon, changing their trajectories. So, though the odds are strongly against it (how strongly no one can yet say) the comet has a real if small chance of actually hitting the planet.</p>
<p>Which would be cool, in all sorts of ways. For a start, it should be simply spectacular. Given the unusual speed of the comet (which is moving so fast that it may well be coming from outside the solar system—cool upon cool) and the fact that it is travelling the wrong way round the sun, from a planet’s point of view, Mr Plait estimates that its impact should yield a blast equivalent to that of a billion megatons of TNT. It would be an event on the same sort of scale as the impact that drove the dinosaurs extinct 65m years ago. If it really is that big, and if the comet were to hit the side of Mars facing Earth (it seems that it might do, but it might also hit the far side), then the blast could well be visible to the naked eye, even in daylight.</p>
<p>It is worth pointing out that, for C2013 A1 (Siding Spring), this is the nearest thing to a direct effect on Earth that can be imagined. The recent meteor break-up over Russia, and the close pass of asteroid 2012 DA14, have reminded people that Earth, and all other planets, are vulnerable to intervention from outside. But this particular comet is not coming anywhere near Earth.</p>
<p>That does not mean it would not have scientists salivating. Observing such an impact, which might leave a crater hundreds of kilometres across, would be a huge scientific boon. Of the geological processes which shape the surfaces of planets, impacts are the ones that humans have had the least opportunity to observe up close. The faces of the moon, of Mars and of Mercury show the aftereffects of such impacts, but the processes by which they hollow out their craters and raise their rims and central peaks have only been witnessed in miniature. If a fair sized comet smacks into the surface of Mars, telescopes on Earth and in orbit around it will be able to see large-scale cratering in real time and remarkable detail. Telescopes orbiting Mars will do better still—but perhaps not for long. The amount of debris thrown up from the planet’s surface and into <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> would seem likely to make their orbits quite hazardous.</p>
<p>The cratering process would be interesting to geologists. Its aftermath would be fascinating to astrobiologists. There is a lot of ice frozen into the Martian crust. The heat of an enormous impact would melt a huge amount of it. If, as some believe, there are microbes living deep under the Martian surface, such a burst of warm, wet conditions over a substantial chunk of the planet would give them a brief chance to thrive at and close to the surface before the planet refroze. It’s not obvious how to observe such exciting developments, but there are surely already people at NASA and elsewhere giving thought to the matter. And they will have time. Parts of the surface and subsurface in the impact region, if there is an impact, will stay warm for decades.</p>
<p>In all likelihood there won’t be an impact. But even a near miss could be exciting and, for humankind’s emissaries on Mars, spectacular. The various spacecraft now orbiting Mars will get to see a fresh comet at very close quarters. There is a good chance that they will pass through the comet’s “coma”, the comparatively dense (though still remarkably thin) cloud of dust and gas that surrounds the solid nucleus. This will subject them to some risk, as <a href="http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/02271436-comet-to-whiz-past-mars.html">indispensable planetary science blogger Emily Lakdawalla points out</a>—the coma has some grit in it, and at 55km a second a little grit can do a lot of damage. The risks a close approach would pose to the spacecraft currently on the Martian surface, Opportunity and Curiosity, would probably be negligible, and they, too, should get some spectacular pictures to send back to Earth. As Donald Yeomans of NASA says, "unless this comet completely fizzles, it should be extraordinary as seen with Mars-based assets".</p>
<p>And if the comet passes close enough to the planet it may allow a natural experiment. Over the past decade there has been much discussion of the possibility that there might be methane on Mars, possibly produced by the aforementioned subterranean microbes. Various observers claim to have seen evidence for the gas, but theoretical arguments <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/17797286">cast serious doubt on their results</a>. One of the questions in play is how fast the Martian environment can oxidise organic compounds (such as methane) which get pumped or dumped into it. A very close encounter with a comet might result in a measurable pulse of organic matter being introduced into the upper atmosphere; its fate would be interesting to track.</p>
<p>At the very least, NASA and the European Space Agency, which also has a satellite around Mars, will get an unexpected close encounter with a new and intriguing comet. At most, though more than a billion dollars worth of spacecraft may be lost, scientists might get to see the creation of a giant crater and, later, to explore a defrosted tranche of Mars that will give them the best chance they could imagine of discovering life on the planet, if life there is.</p>
<p>More detail on the orbit of C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) will not be available for a few months, as it is currently hidden from view by the sun. When it reappears, a great many telescopes will be trained on it, trying to work out where, exactly, it will end up. In the meantime, Don Dixon's illustration (above) depicts the sort of thing which might just possibly be in store.</p>
<p>Click <a href="http://www.economist.com/products/subscribe/CUR22/noreg">here</a> to subscribe to <keyword id="425741" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="The-Economist">The Economist</keyword></p>
<p></p>

A Super Fast Comet Is Headed For Mars 

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Time Warner chief executive Jeff Bewkes has hinted that the company might be up for sale,<a href="http://nypost.com/2016/01/12/bewkes-nixes-hbo-spinoff-but-open-to-time-warner-sale/"> The New York Post reports</a>, citing sources.<p>In a series of meetings with investors, Bewkes reportedly snubbed the idea of spinning off its prize assets, HBO or its Turner Broadcasting TV business, because he wants to "increase shareholder value."</p><p>"Splitting up can destroy value," he told one investor, pointing toward how Viacom's struggling stock price since it was split up a decade ago, according to the New York Post. In the media business, scale matters.</p><p>Business Insider has contacted Time Warner for comment and we'll update this article if&#xa0;we hear back.</p><p>Time Warner's stock is currently at the ~$71 mark, but one analyst told The New York Post it could be worth $100 were it broken up - hence the reason some investors are pushing for a sale or breakup.</p><p>Time Warner's other units include TNT, TBS, and the Warner Bros. movie studio.</p><p>Writing for<a href="http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/01/13/2016/apple-amazon-google-may-end-fighting-time-warner"> The Street</a>, Eric Jackson of SpringOwl Asset Management (which has shares in Time Warner,) said he "suspect[s] it will be bought this year."</p><h2>Who might be lining up to buy Time Warner?</h2><h2><strong>Fox?</strong></h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The news comes two years after Time Warner turned down a takeover offer from 21st Century Fox, valued at $85 per share.<p>Fox is owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who also owns New York Post parent company News Corp. The New York Post has been first to all the latest updates on a potential Time Warner sale. Could one of Murdoch's lieutenants, or Murdoch himself, be stoking the fires?</p><p><a href="http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/16/01/6127928/exclusive-21st-century-fox-rekindles-bid-for-time-warner">Last week Benzinga reported</a> that Fox lined up a $105 per share offer for Time Warner. A Fox spokesperson told Benzinga: "The report is categorically untrue."</p><p>But BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/01/12/apple-keeps-close-eye-on-potential-time-warner-spinoff/">told The New York Post</a> that acquiring Time Warner would be in both companies' best interests: "They would have the finance to do it. It would involve selling down satellite TV service BSkyB in the UK and may require other spinoffs."</p><p>However, Fox CEO <a href="http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/time-warner-shares-sale-rumors-1201678197/">Lachlan Murdoch told Variety</a> Fox was not an interested party in Time Warner.</p><h2><strong>Carl Icahn or another activist investor?</strong></h2><p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-time-warner-divestiture-idUSKCN0UQ2FK20160112">As Reuters points out,</a> another possible suitor for Time Warner might be activist investor Carl Icahn. Reuters claims Icahn&#xa0;has been buying up shares in Time Warner (<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/11/carl-icahn-denies-building-stake-in-time-warner-blames-speculators-for-rumour.html">CNBC quoted him</a> as saying he owns nothing in the company.) Icahn also unsuccessfully led a campaign for Time Warner to be broken up in 2006.</p><p><a href="http://nypost.com/2016/01/12/bewkes-nixes-hbo-spinoff-but-open-to-time-warner-sale/">The New York Post</a> posited that Icahn (or another investor) might be the mystery buyer of $100 million of Time Warner call options. These options give the buyer the option to buy shares at a set price in the future, which means Icahn could be the purchaser but still be factually correct in saying he does not own any shares. However, Icahn did say he owns "nothing" in Time Warner.</p><p><div></div></p><p class="embed-spacer">Icahn's former colleague, Keith Meister, now the founder of Corvex,&#xa0;is pushing Time Warner towards a sale or spinoff of its most valuable assets, <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/01/07/time-warner-shareholders-could-force-sale-or-spinoff-of-hbo/">according to the New York Post</a>.</p><p>Investors feel they will get more bang for their buck were Time Warner's best assets spun off. While Time Warner isn't keen on an HBO spin-off, a potential buyer might be.</p><h2><strong>Apple?</strong></h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Both The New York Post and Eric Jackson suggest <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/01/12/apple-keeps-close-eye-on-potential-time-warner-spinoff/">Apple might have an eye on Time Warner</a>.</p><p>Time Warner would give Apple a smooth route in to launching a standalone senior TV service, in the form of HBO Now. Apple's Eddie Cue, "has been keeping a tab on proceedings at Time Warner," according to the New York Post.</p><p>Apple has long struggled to launch a streaming service of its own, largely due to its difficult to secure the content deals needed to stream premium shows to compete with the likes of Netflix and Amazon.&#xa0;</p><p>The New York Post writes: "A deal with Time Warner would give Apple most of what it needs: CNN news, Turner Sports and such hugely popular shows as 'Game of Thrones' and 'Sesame Street' from HBO - not to mention Warner Bros. movies and TV shows."</p><p>Apple has more than $205 million in cash on its balance sheet, <a href="http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AAPL/1049846332x0x861262/2601797E-6590-4CAA-86C9-962348440FFC/2015_Form_10-K_As-filed_.pdf">according to its latest SEC filing</a>, so it could certainly afford to push some of that towards&#xa0;a bid. It&#xa0;would represent just a tiny, tiny fraction of the value of Time Warner, which currently has a market cap of $57.6 billion.</p><p>This, however, would be an unusual move for Apple which is a technology company focused on hardware, software, and services.&#xa0;</p><h2><strong>Another tech company?</strong></h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Eric Jackson suggests other tech companies that could be interested in gobbling up Time Warner: Google and Amazon.<p>Referring to Amazon, he notes a report from the Sport Business Journal that suggests&#xa0;the company has been the "most aggressive" of the digital players to bid for the rights to stream NFL Thursday Night Football.&#xa0;</p><p>However, The Wall Street Journal's Miriam Gottfried <a href="https://twitter.com/miriamgottfried/status/687278509669093377">thinks that's unlikely to happen</a>. Back in August, she wrote&#xa0;an&#xa0;<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-media-mergers-flimsy-script-1440175587">article</a>&#xa0;that outlined the issues tech companies might face in acquiring TV businesses: "Paying a premium for a business model tied directly to the TV ecosystem the buyer seeks to disrupt;" the fact that for most tech companies a big deal would involve using stock, which could see some investors balk; and that the sheer size of Time Warner would be a huge distraction to the core business.</p><p>And let's not forget what happened when AOL merged with&#xa0;Time Warner in a deal valued at $250 billion back in 2000. That merger has been dubbed <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/business/media/11merger.html?hp=&amp;pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0">"the worst in history"</a>&#xa0;after the dot com bubble well and truly burst, the economy went into recession, and AOL had to take a goodwill write-off of nearly $99 billion in 2003. The&#xa0;total value of AOL's stock was decimated from around $226 billion to $20 billion and the companies de-merged later that year.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-s6-apple-iphone-6s-comparison-features-2015-12">7 ways the Samsung Galaxy S6 is better than the iPhone 6s</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="RvcmIyeDrz5o1xUM5hqpulpdksh9vTWQ" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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