Oumuamua Might Be An Extraterrestrial Probe

Oumuamua was first detected by the  Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System-1 (Pan-STARRS-1) in Hawaii. Even now we have no idea what the object really is.

Oumuamua, whose official name is 1I/2017 U1, has been thoroughly monitored by researchers worldwide since it was discovered. The scientists have mostly been trying to identify if it was an asteroid or comet. That argument has not been settled but there is another theory proposed by scientists about Oumuamua: it's actually an alien spacecraft.

In late 2018, two scientists at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) announced a research named  'Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain Oumuamua's Peculiar Acceleration?', where Professor Abraham Loeb and Shmuel Bialy stated several reasons proving their theory.

First of all, Oumuamua is unusually long in relation to its width, which is rare to see in space objects appearing in the solar system. Additionally, the object doesn't release gas, comets always do that when approaching stars. Because comets are mainly composed of ice, they burn up and melt, thereby releasing gas and accelerate due to losing mass.

However, Oumuamua didn't do that. It did not release gas and maintained a steady speed while approaching us. Nevertheless, it's speed was increased when it left the solar system, contradicting our knowledge on asteroids and comets.

That is the reason why Loeb and Bialy proposed that radiation from the sun caused Oumuamua to increase speed. That can only happen if Oumumua possed a solar sail.  We have theorized this propulsion method but it will take us many years or decades to create it. Therefore,  it is possible that Oumumua was an alien probe, like our New Horizons.

In addition, Loeb also participated in a study recently with another member of CfA, John Forbes, the study is titled 'Turning up the heat on Oumuamua', it proposes that maybe Oumumua is not the first alien object to approach our system, and maybe interstellar objects often enter the solar system and end up colliding with the Sun.

At the time of Oumuamua's discovery, scientists speculated based on the object's flight path that it came from outside the solar system and was in the journey of leaving our solar system. Moreover, even now after more than a year, we still don't know what the object was. Therefore, some scientists think that Oumuamua can be an alien probe.  Even if we agree that it was an alien probe, it doesn't matter if it is the first or the last alien object.

The study states that Oumuamua enables them to calibrate a lot of space objects with a similar size based on the sensitivity and survey time if the Pan STARRS telescopes and there are approximately a quadrillion of similar objects per star in our galaxy. A small number of those objects goes close to Jupiter and become trapped in our Solar System.

They have discovered that similar objects clash with the Sun once every 30 years, and two objects enter Mercury's orbit every year. After identifying the preferred directions of space objects' orbits, they conclude that at least one among space objects in our Solar System comes from outside of the Solar System.

Loeb said that this discovery will enable other telescopes to spot other objects similar to Oumuamua near us. This means that we may, at last, be able to settle this question forever and we can at least find out more information about the universe.