3 Controversial Ideas From Abraham Loeb, The Harvard Astronomer Who Thinks Oumuamua Is An Alien Spaceship

Abraham Loeb former director of the astronomy department of the Harvard University and author of more than 1,000 research articles and eight books (including Extraterrestrial: Humanity before the first sign of intelligent life beyond Earth And Life in the cosmos), is a strong advocate of the possibility that ‘Oumuamua A reddish-colored object detected by scientists at the University of Hawaii — using the telescope PAN-STARS October 19, 2017, is the first space object from another solar system discovered near Earth.

The mysterious visitor, whose name means “first distant messenger” in Hawaiian, has been classified by science as an asteroid. But Avi Loeb (as the astronomer selected in 2012 by the magazine time as one of the 25 most influential people in space) said it could come from “another civilization” and it was published in his most famous study in the scientific journal Astrophysical Journal Letters written with the astronomer Shmuel Bialy .

This report, published in October 2018, bears the enigmatic title of “Could solar radiation pressure explain Oumuamua’s peculiar acceleration? » is only five pages long and is full of complex calculations of trajectories and accelerations.

However, His conclusions are clear. and since then, they have shaken the astronomical community and fans of extraterrestrial life: ““Oumuamua could be a fully operational probe intentionally sent near Earth by an extraterrestrial civilization” “, think Loeb and Bialy. Or it could be “the remains of a cutting-edge technological equipment,” such as a solar sail like those created by our scientists, such as IKAROS the first interplanetary probe powered by a solar sail, launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2010 to the planet Venus.

Loeb and Bialy’s conclusions come from observing the unusually high speed and trajectory that the PAN-STARRS telescope managed to capture of ‘Oumuamua over the three nights of its observation.

“Since its discovery, ‘Oumuamua has exhibited unusual characteristics, making it a rare object, belonging to a class of object never seen before,” Loeb said. BBC . “What could be causing Oumuamua to overaccelerate? That’s the fundamental question we’re trying to answer. If it’s not a comet’s tail pushing it, what else could it be? “.

Below are three controversial ideas from renowned Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb based on the unknown reddish object that passed within 0.2 AU of Earth.

In 2018, Loeb and Bialy, then a postdoctoral student, established that one “possibility” is that ‘Oumuamua would be a kind of space navigation sail who travels through the cosmos “like the provision of certain advanced technological equipment “.

They even theorized a more exotic scenario in which “‘Oumuamua could be a fully operational probe intentionally sent close to Earth by an extraterrestrial civilization.

According to Loeb himself in an interview with The third published in 2019, “When I go on vacation, I like to walk along the beach with my daughters and study the shells that end up on the shore. Every now and then, we find an artificial plastic bottle. ‘Oumuamua may be an example of such a bottle that has been produced technologically . A caveman’s immediate reaction to a cell phone would be to assume it was a piece of rock. Unsurprisingly, this has also been the natural response of many of us to ‘Oumuamua. “.

First contact with aliensit would be a shock because probably its technology is much more advanced than ours,” Loeb said in the aforementioned interview. “We cannot imagine what our technology will look like a thousand years from now… let alone that developed by a civilization a million or a billion years older. Such contact will have a dramatic impact on our perception of our place in the universe . This will allow our civilization to mature in its perspective of reality, just as children grow up when they go out for the first time and meet people who are not part of their immediate family. Suddenly, these children are no longer the center of attention and they stop feeling unique, especially if they are not the smartest on the block. But the good news is that they can learn from other children and become smarter.

For Loeb, who in his home in Massachusetts in the United States has received illustrious names such as the late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking To assume that we are alone in the universe demonstrates a very limited vision.

“I do not consider the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial life as something speculative. because nearly a quarter of all stars have a planet the same size and surface temperature as Earth, where water could exist with the chemistry of life as we know it. If you roll the dice tens of billions of times in the Milky Way alone – Earth’s galaxy – There is very little chance that we are alone . “Anyone who claims that we are unique is just displaying their arrogance.”