Why Harvard Scientists Think Oumuamua Came From an Alien Civilization

It was an ordinary day for a team of astronomers . Your telescope STARRS Bread based at the University of Hawaii, was probing space, as he always did, when suddenly, detected an unprecedented strange object .

Scientists’ Day completely changed course . They and other space projects began tracking the trajectory of this particular mass for three days, until they lost sight of it. So, in October 2017, one of the great unknowns of the universe and science has begun .

What did the scientists see?

It is a 400 meter long type of stone with a reddish surface . As described BBC World , shot with speed I had a chaotic trajectory and its brightness changed abruptly .

Without knowing what it was, scientists in Hawaii named it Oumuamua which means “messenger from afar who arrives first”.

Since then, different theories have been generated to try to explain what this mysterious object was. One of the most controversial is that of astronomers from the Harvard University who believes that This could be something intentionally sent by an alien civilization. .

At first, scientific discussion was limited to Oumuamua could be a comet or an asteroid . The comet theory was, for a time, the winner.

At that time, David Farnochhia of JAR says that “It must be a comet and the gases emanating from its surface are causing small variations in its trajectory.” .

However, other scientists did not believe this hypothesis because, unlike an ordinary comet, had no tail of dust and ice particles .

And even though it was only in October 2017 that they saw it for the first time, the debate remains latent. Only the options explaining what the particular object is have been developed: A study conducted by a group of scientists from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics made a controversial proposal which was published in the magazine Astrophysical Journal Letters .

He suggested that its origin might be “artificial” . It is “Oumuamua could be a fully operational probe, intentionally sent close to Earth by an extraterrestrial civilization” .

They also believe that it could be “a remnant of advanced technological equipment” like a solar sail which allows a ship to be propelled by solar radiation or solar wind plasma.

Theories of astronomers Shmuel Bialy And Abraham Loeb The authors of the research based their findings on information captured by telescopes that day in 2017: high speed and particular trajectory for them, They rule out that it is a comet .

“Since its discovery, Oumuamua showed unusual characteristics This makes it a rare object, belonging to a class of objects never seen before,” Loeb told the BBC.

“What could cause Oumuamua to over-accelerate? This is the fundamental question we are trying to answer. If it is not the tail of a comet that is pushing it, what else could it be? We propose that it is solar radiation “.

But not everyone agrees. The member of University of Toronto Centre for Planetary Science , Alan Jackson said in a conversation with CNN that he was not convinced and that the study presented by the Harvard astronomers was “quite defective” .

“Carl Sagan once said, ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,’ and This document clearly lacks evidence and there is no extraordinary evidence “.

Just like Jackson, There are several detractors of the extraterrestrial hypothesis who do not have sufficient evidence. take it as an absolute truth. The same authors mentioned in the publication that the telescope observations “are not conclusive enough to give a clear picture of Oumuamua” .

However, the work of scientists adds an additional variant to continue investigating the still unknown origin of the Oumuamua .