A physicist assessed the mystery surrounding the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua’, which flew across Earth in 2017 at an exceptionally high speed.
Harvard professor Avi Loeb commented during an interview with Salon that it is possible that the fast cigar-shaped object was an interstellar spacecraft.
“At first, astronomers assumed it should be a comet, because these are the objects that are most loosely linked to the stars,” said Loeb. “The problem was that there was no cometary tail.”
Loeb wrote a book on the subject, entitled: “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond the Earth.” The book is scheduled to be released next week.
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An artistic representation of ‘Oumuamua, a visitor from outside the solar system. Credit: Art from the international Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA by J. Pollard
“Some people say, ‘OK, it’s not a comet, maybe it’s just a rock.’ But the problem is that, about half a year later, it was reported that there was an excess of pushing beyond the force of gravity acting on him by the sun, “he continued.” He exhibited some additional force. Usually this force comes from the rocket effect of the comet’s tail, but there was no comet’s tail. So the question was: what produces this excessive impulse? “
Loeb told the site that there was another object discovered that exhibited an excessive impulse called 2020-SO, which he said ended up being a rocket booster for a failed lunar module mission, Surveyor II, which was launched in 1966. He said why this object was made artificially and had no cometary trace, it “provides evidence” that we can tell the difference between a rock and an object – like the propulsion rocket – that is pushed by sunlight.
“For me, it showed that maybe ‘Oumuamua was artificial, definitely not done by us because he was only a few months away from us. We couldn’t even chase him with our best rockets,” he told Salon.
Loeb added that it was at the “brightest end of all the objects we saw in the solar system”.
In November 2018, a study published by Loeb and others at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggested that ‘Oumuamua could be “a candle of artificial light” sent from another civilization. However, the researcher who discovered ‘Oumuamua, Canadian physicist and astronomer Robert Weryk, said that the idea that he was from another civilization was just “wild speculation”.
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‘Oumuamua, which means “trailblazer” or “scout” in Hawaiian, was first classified as an asteroid when it was located in 2017 traveling at 196,000 mph. However, it has recently been found more like a comet.
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NASA confirmed that it is “the first object seen in our solar system that is known to have originated elsewhere.”
Chris Ciaccia of Fox News contributed to this report