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Two Harvard scientists claim that a massive and rapidly changing visitor to our solar system could have been a probe sent by an extraterrestrial civilization. Most astronomers believe Oumuamua – Hawaiian for "messenger" or "scout" – is a comet or asteroid, except half a mile long. But there are things about his behavior that they can not explain everything. Enter two Harvard scientists with an idea even if they admit there is a little, reports Tony Dokoupil, CBS News correspondent.
When Oumuamua was discovered last October, it plummeted in the sun at 196,000 mph. For some, the reddish object looked like a cigar. Others thought that it was shaped like a pancake.
"This looks very different from the objects we found in the solar system," said Avi Loeb, director of the astronomy department at Harvard University. Loeb said that Oumuamua did not behave like an ordinary asteroid or release gas like a comet.
"There seemed to be an extra force pushing her, and we do not know what the push is coming from," he added.
In a future article, he and his colleague propose what they call a "more exotic scenario … Oumuamua could be a fully operational probe, intentionally sent to the Earth's surroundings by an extraterrestrial civilization."
According to their calculations, Oumuamua has a thickness of less than a millimeter, but is very wide like a sail, exploiting solar radiation to propel itself – similar to the spaceship used by Count Dooku in "Star Wars" movies.
"I just want everyone to accept this with a gigantic grain of salt," said Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. She said that Oumuamua had not issued any signals suggesting that it was a spaceship.
"If you say that the list of 10 main explanations does not include the extraterrestrial probe, what is in this list of the 10 main explanations?" Dokoupil asked.
"It's a comet, or an asteroid, or a rock," Faherty said.
"So where is the extraterrestrial civilization on the list of explanations?"
"I do not know, very low, very low, really, really low," said Faherty.
Faherty doubts that the appearance of Oumuamua means that we are at the edge of an extraterrestrial encounter like that of the movie "Arrival".
"Oumuamua, in its current form, is a phenomenal discovery and a very important object for astronomers to study and for the public to excite," Faherty said. "It's good that it's not extraterrestrials."
Oumuamua is now so far that we can not see it anymore with our satellites. Faherty had a theory about why we continue to offer these exotic explanations: as difficult as it is to understand the existence of aliens, it is apparently even more difficult to understand the idea that we are alone.
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