An interstellar object discovered over a year ago may have been an alien spy ship, according to scientists. The news was revealed by researchers from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
In October 2017, scientists discovered a “cigar-shaped” object traveling at speeds of nearly 200,000 miles per hour. Nicknamed “Oumuamua,” meaning “a messenger that reaches out from the distant past” in Hawaiian, the object is said to be 10 times as long as it is wide.
“Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization,” scientists claim in a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Scientists suspect that the object may be moving at such a mind-blowing speed with the help of solar radiation. One theory is that Oumuamua is a light sail, allowing its “excess acceleration.”
According to scientists, Oumuamua is the first object we’ve seen in our solar system that originated elsewhere.
So, should we be worried about the object’s origins? And are we on the brink of an Avengers-style invasion? Not exactly. Scientists didn’t explicitly say that extraterrestrial life exists, while also clarifying that the alien ship may no longer be operational.
Even if it is of alien origin, scientists say Oumuamua has left the solar system, possibly off exploring other far reaches of the universe.
