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(CNN) – A mysterious cigarette-shaped object that would have been observed around our solar system last year could have been an extraterrestrial spacecraft sent to study the Earth, according to astronomers of the United States. Harvard University. 19659002] The object, identified with the name "Oumuamua," which means in Hawaiian "a messenger coming from a distant past," was discovered in October 2017 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope of D & # 39; 39; Hawaii.
LEE: This object should not be in our solar system, from where did it come?
Since its discovery, scientists have not been able to agree to explain its unusual characteristics and its precise origin. Some researchers first said that it was a comet, then an asteroid, before determining that it was the first product of the genre: a new clbad of "interstellar objects".
A new work by researchers at the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Harvard suggests the possibility that the elongated object of dark red color, ten times longer than wide and moving at a speed of 315,000 kilometers to the 39, hour, may have an "artificial origin".
"Oumuamua could be a fully operational probe sent to the vicinity of the Earth by an extraterrestrial civilization," the researchers wrote in an article presented to the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The theory is based on the "excessive acceleration" of the object or the unexpected impulse of its speed as it traveled and finally left our solar system in January 2018.
"Considering a artificial origin, a possibility is "Oumuamua is a solar sail, floating in interstellar space as the remains of advanced technological equipment", wrote the authors of the book, in which they suggest that the object could be powered by solar radiation.
by Abraham Loeb, professor and director of astronomy, and Shmuel Bialy, postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at Harvard.
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