[ad_1]
An alien civilization feels a spaceship to investigate Earth and we mistook it for an asteroid, astronomers from one of the world's top universities have suggested.
Asteroid 'Oumuamua, a cigar-shaped object which has been replaced by the solar system last year, accelerated and changed direction.
Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggests the elongated asteroid might have an 'artificial origin'.
'' Oumuamua may be fully operational probed intentionally to Earth's vicinity by an alien civilization, '' they wrote.
Their research suggests several explanations for the formation of 'Oumuamua, which is considered as a new class of space object.
It was 196,000 mph and was about half a mile long. Nasa said it had never been seen before in the solar system before.
Initially, the fact 'Oumuamua appeared to speed up led astronomers to suggest it was a comet. These icy objects accelerate due to a process called outgassing, in which the sun heats up a comet and causes it to release gases.
But in their paper, the Harvard stargazers ruled out the possibility it was an active comet.
They proposed that it was powered by 'solar radiation' produced by the sun, but went on to make more 'exotic' suggestions to explain its acceleration.
more: Tech
MORE: The cigar-shaped asteroid 'Oumuamua could be an alien probe with broken engines, top astronomer suggests
The peer suggests it may have been a type of spaceship called a 'light sail' featuring a wide and very thin sheet that is blown by the light produced by stars.
When it travels through the solar system, it was tumbling end-over-end, which could also mean it was a piece of space wreckage left behind by aliens.
'Considering an artificial origin, one possibility is that' Oumuamua is a lightsail, floating in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment, 'the astronomers continued.
'Lightsails with similar dimensions have been designed by our own civilization, including the IKAROS project and the Starshot Initiative
'The lightsail technology might be abundantly used for transportation between planets or between stars.'
They said alien civilizations can jettison used cargo ships, resulting in space debris that looks like lot Asteroid 'Oumuamua.
[ad_2]
Source link
