In October of 2017, we came to know about the first interstellar object to be ever detected passing through our solar system. As such it quickly grabbed the attention of the world.
It was first classified as a comet, then as an asteroid. Then again, astronomers reported that is was a mildly active comet and now, according to latest reports, it is suggested that it is neither an asteroid nor a comet.
Currently, it is designated as 1I/2017 U1, and is the first member of an entirely new class of objects, known as interstellar objects. It is dark red in color and is highly elongated in shape, leading some to call it cigar-shaped, though that has not been cofirmed.
Right now, its origins are not confirmed and is already on its way out of the solar system. The world was already starting to forget about the object, but a recent report from Harvard Professors, renewed the buzz surrounding it.
An Alien Spacecraft?
If anyone else would have said it, people would have probably laughed it off but when this comes from Harvard professors, the report holds at least some credibility. Of course, it doesn't prove anything, but it is something to consider.
What the professors (Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb) say in the report is that, Oumuamua may be an artificial solar sail of sorts. The object actually sped up after passing the Sun. The extra acceleration cannot be accounted by gravity alone and hence scientists believe that there must be some external force applied to it to result in its speeding up.
This strange behaviour of its movement led the professors to suggest that the object "could have been a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilisation."
One other theory, which sounds more plausible to be honest, is that the object could have accelerated because of gases escaping the surface as it passed the Sun. But the professors say that they detected no such release.
Although the professors do not exert that Oumuamua is actually an alien probe, calling it an exotic possibility, other scientists have said that there is simply no evidence to even consider it an alien probe. We will never know for sure!
Image Credits for thumbnail: ESO/M. Kornmesser under CC BY 4.0 License