Scientists have hit back at “outlandish” claims that a cigar-shaped interstellar body zooming through our solar system might have been sent by aliens to spy on us.
Experts from Harvard had suggested the giant space rock “may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.”
However, several renowned astronomers have challenged the out-of-this-world suggestion.
“Like most scientists, I would love there to be convincing evidence of alien life, but this isn’t it,” said Dr. Alan Fitzsimmons of Queens University Belfast.
“It has already been shown that its observed characteristics are consistent with a comet-like body ejected from another star system.
“And some of the arguments in this study are based on numbers with large uncertainties.”
Another well-known astrophysicist, Dr. Katie Mack from North Carolina State, blasted the claim on Twitter on Monday.
“The thing you have to understand is: scientists are perfectly happy to publish an outlandish idea if it has even the tiniest *sliver* of a chance of not being wrong,” she wrote.
“But until every other possibility has been exhausted dozen times over, even the authors probably don’t believe it.”
Astronomers from Harvard’s Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics detected an unexpected boost in speed and shift in trajectory in Oumuamua as it passed through the inner solar system.
The change in course and speed was so pronounced, they concluded the object “might be a lightsail of artificial origin.”
Constantly streaming solar particles, called photons, could be harnessed in huge sails in the same way wind is on Earth.
The research paper said: “Considering an artificial origin, one possibility is that Oumuamua is a lightsail, floating in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment.
“Alternatively, a more exotic scenario is that Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.”
Theoretical physicist Avi Loeb Loeb told Universe Today: “Oumuamua could be an active piece of alien technology that came to explore our Solar System, the same way we hope to explore Alpha Centauri using Starshot and similar technologies.
“The alternative is to imagine that Oumuamua was on a reconnaissance mission.”
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