Harvard professor Avi Loeb: Alien debris passed near Earth in 2017

• Scientists in 2017 detected the first sign of intelligent life outside of Earth, according to a new book by Harvard University professor Avi Loeb.
• The “cigar-shaped rock object with a somewhat reddish tint” has been named “1I / 2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua” by NASA.
• “There was only one conceivable explanation: the object was a piece of cutting edge technology created by a distant alien civilization,” according to publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
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An alien object flew over near-Earth space in 2017, wrote Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb in a book to be released this month.

It was the first sign of intelligent life outside of Earth, according to Loeb.

Scientists at a Hawaiian observatory saw “an object hovering through our inner solar system, moving so quickly it could only have come from another star,” according to the marketing summary of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s book, ” Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. “

The object was not a natural event, but a bit of space debris ejected from another galaxy, according to Loeb, a science professor with a doctorate in physics.

“There was only one conceivable explanation: the object was a piece of advanced technology created by a distant extraterrestrial civilization,” according to HMH.

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

In a review, Publishers Weekly called the book a “controversial manifesto.”

But Loeb was not alone in his enthusiasm for the object, which was called “1I / 2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua” by NASA.

“The first confirmed object from another star to visit our solar system, this interstellar intruder appears to be a cigar-shaped rock object with a somewhat reddish tint,” NASA said in its description of the object.

“For decades we have hypothesized that such interstellar objects exist, and now – for the first time – we have direct evidence of their existence,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Scientific Missions Directorate of NASA in Washington, upon its discovery. .

He added: “This historic discovery opens a new window to study the formation of solar systems beyond our own.”

In the blurb on the cover, Anne Wojcicki, CEO and co-founder of 23andMe, wrote that Loeb’s new book “convinces you that scientific curiosity is the key to our future success.”

“An exciting and compelling case that we could have seen a sign of intelligent life near Earth – and that we should look further,” she wrote.

Eric Maskin, professor at Harvard, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, added: “Is the assumption correct? Who knows. But let’s try to find out!”