Could mysterious 'Oumuamua' object could be an alien spacecraft?

Artist's impression of Oumuamua. Credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO

Ever since the appearance of Oumuamua in our Solar System in October 2017 and discovery by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii, scientists have been puzzled over this strange and mysterious object. For instance, its high speed, 315,000 kmh and its unusual trajectory, also its colour, which it appears to be reddish and of course it unusual elongated shape which is 10 times as long as it is wide which set it apart from conventional asteroids and comets. 

Now two Harvard researchers are leaving opened the possibility that Oumuamua may be some sort of alien spacecraft, a proposition to be published on November 12 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, in their words they say that the object "may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization." These paper is written by Abraham Loeb, professor and chair of astronomy, and Shmuel Bialy, a postdoctoral scholar, at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. 

'Oumuamua is the first object ever seen in our solar system, which we know to have originated elsewhere. In the beginning, astronomers thought the rapidly moving faint light was a regular comet or an asteroid that had originated in our solar system. It is well documented that comets are known to speed up due to "outgassing," a process in which the sun heats the surface of the icy comet, releasing melted gas. However, 'Oumuamua didn't have a "coma," the atmosphere and dust that surrounds comets as they melt. 

The investigators don’t claim that Oumuamua was sent here by aliens. However, after a careful mathematical analysis of the way the interstellar object sped up in its journey past our sun, they say that the mysterious object could be a spacecraft pushed through space by light falling on its surface, in other words, a "lightsail of artificial origin." 

Artist concept of NanoSail-D deployed successfully by NASA in space on January of 2011. Credit: NASA

But if Oumuamua is of artificial origins, what will its purpose be? Loeb, chairman of Harvard's astronomy department and a co-author of the paper said "It is impossible to guess the purpose behind Oumuamua without more data," but he said that if indeed is a lightsail, a possibility may be that it was floating in interstellar space when our solar system ran into it, "like a ship bumping into a buoy on the surface of the ocean." 

Loeb is an adviser to Breakthrough Starshot which is a research and engineering project by the Breakthrough Initiatives to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of light sail spacecraft named StarChip, a technology in its early developments. 

Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute is not all too convince about this idea, since there are other plausible explanations regarding the nature of this object, "It's certainly ingenious to show that an object the size of Oumuamua might be sent by aliens to another star system with nothing but a solar sail for power." 

Other scientist aren´t so convince either, especially given the tumbling motion of the object. One thing is sure, it is now out of reach to ever know about it given our current technology, but other like this could pass by one day, perhaps we should be alert and ready for the next one. 

Source: NBC, CNN, Wikipedia,