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| © European Southern Obervatory/M. Kornmesser/Handout via REUTERS This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid, `Oumuamua as it passes through the solar system after its discovery in October 2017. European Southern Obervatory/M. Kornmesser/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY |
By Chris Ciaccia, FOX News
NASA may have ruled that Oumuamua, the first interstellar object ever spotted in our system is a "metallic or rocky object"
approximately 400 meters (1,312 feet) in length and 40 meters (131
feet) wide, but a new study from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics says it could be something much more exciting – it could be
"a lightsail of artificial origin" sent from another civilization.
The study,
which was posted online earlier this month, suggests that Oumuamua's
strange "excess acceleration" could be artificial in nature, as it has
been implied that it is not an active comet.
"Considering an
artificial origin, one possibility is that ‘Oumuamua is a lightsail,
floating in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced
technological equipment," researchers wrote in the paper.
The paper continues: "Lightsails with similar dimensions have been
designed and constructed by our own civilization, including the IKAROS
project and the Starshot Initiative. The lightsail technology might be
abundantly used for transportation of cargos between planets or between
stars."
They even theorized that Oumuamua "may be a fully
operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien
civilization," though that scenario was called "exotic."
The paper
was written by postdoctoral researcher Shmuel Bialy and professor
Abraham Loeb, the director at the CfA's Institute for Theory and
Computation.
Other studies have suggested that other "Oumuamua-like objects" will potentially enter our solar system, with some potentially carrying life.
"The
likelihood of Galactic panspermia is strongly dependent upon the
survival lifetime of the putative organisms as well as the velocity of
the transporter," according to a paper published in The Astronomical Journal by Manasvi Lingam and the aforementioned Loeb.
They
added: "Velocities between 10−100 km s−1 result in the highest
probabilities. However, given large enough survival lifetimes, even
hypervelocity objects traveling at over 1000 km s−1 have a significant
chance of capture, thereby increasing the likelihood of panspermia."
Panspermia is the hypothesis that life on Earth originated from
microorganisms in outer space that were carried here unintentionally by
objects such as space dust, meteoroids and asteroids, according to an
article on NASA's website.
Oumuamua, which is the Hawaiian name
for "pathfinder" or "scout," was discovered in October 2017 by the
PanSTARRS1 telescope after it spotted a new spot of light coming from a
strange direction at an unusually fast speed.
Since its discovery, researchers have debated whether it is a comet or an asteroid, though it was eventually determined to be a comet.
Oumuamua
is traveling away from the Sun at a rate of approximately 70,000 mph,
towards the outer part of the solar system. In approximately four years,
it will whiz past Neptune's orbit, on its way to interstellar space.
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