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When the first ever-observed interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua, passed Earth in 2017, it appeared to accelerate. That’s not what most space rocks do – which is part of why Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb says “Oumuamua was an alien spaceship.”
Although most researchers agree that the object was a space rock – either a comet or a piece of a small planet – Loeb believes that there are countless other objects like ‘Oumuamua passing through our planet, some of which could also come from extraterrestrials. So he launched a program to find them.
On Monday, Loeb announced an initiative called the Galileo Project – named after the Italian astronomer – which will search for physical evidence of alien technologies and civilizations.
“It’s a fishing expedition, let’s go out and catch any fish we find,” Loeb said at a press conference. “And that includes objects close to Earth, hovering in our atmosphere, or objects from outside the solar system that look strange.”
The $ 1.75 million project, backed by at least four philanthropists, aims to use an array of terrestrial telescopes to search for interstellar objects that may be alien in nature. The group will also hunt potential alien craft in Earth orbit, as well as unidentified flying objects in our atmosphere.
Find interstellar objects before they pass Earth
By the time astronomers became aware of ‘Oumuamua’s existence, it was already spinning at 196,000 mph. Several telescopes on the ground and one in space made limited observations, but astronomers only had a few weeks to study the bizarre skyscraper-sized object before it strayed too far .
This left many questions about what the object was and where it came from. In a book published in January by Loeb, “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth”, he describes’ Oumuamua as an ancient alien technology.
“The object has some anomalies that deserve some attention – things that don’t line up as expected,” Loeb told Insider ahead of the book’s publication, adding, “When something doesn’t line up, you should to say it”.
Two years after the discovery of Oumuamua, astronomers spotted a second interstellar object: a comet called 2I / Borisov. With the Galileo project, Loeb and a team of 14 other researchers hope to spot future interstellar objects as they approach Earth. To do this, they plan to use the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii and an 8-meter-wide telescope currently under construction at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.
Early detection could allow scientists to send probes to these objects, according to Frank Laukien, visiting researcher at Harvard and co-founder of the Galileo project.
“We should, next time, have much better data much sooner, and maybe land on it or come very, very close,” Laukien said at the press conference.
Searching for signs of alien technology
Loeb describes the new project as complementary to the SETI institute, which searches for extraterrestrial life using radio telescopes. But the Galileo project, he said, will seek physical evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations, rather than radio signals. This includes potential alien satellites that could be orbiting Earth or fragments of alien craft. (One of Loeb’s assumptions is that ‘Oumuamua is a piece of luminous sail or antenna that has come loose from a larger ship.)
Loeb also plans to examine unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, in Earth’s atmosphere.
Last month, US intelligence officials released a report describing 144 incidents since 2004 in which the military encountered NAPs. One of those incidents turned out to involve the deflation of a balloon, but the rest remain unexplained, the report concluded.
“This is an unusual admission by the government that there are objects in our skies that we don’t fully understand,” Loeb said.
According to the Galileo Project website, these PANs could be artifacts of an extinct alien civilization or active alien equipment. The group therefore hopes to image future PANs with a higher resolution by creating a network of 1-meter telescopes across the world.
Such telescopes, which cost around $ 500,000 each, can spot details as small as 1 millimeter on objects the size of a person a mile away.
“It might help us distinguish a label saying ‘thing made in country X’ from a label saying ‘made by exoplanet Y’,” Loeb said.
He added that the Galileo team planned to make their data public to encourage other scientists to get involved in the research as well.
“Finding other people on the cosmic streets will help us mature – help us realize that the sharpest cookies in the jar weren’t, and that intelligent life beyond us can exist there,” said said Loeb.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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