An astrophysicist at Harvard University believes that signals from intelligent extraterrestrial life forms have appeared in our sky, from the mysterious light dot in 2017.

On October 19, 2017, Canadian astronomer Robert Weryk discovered a strange phenomenon while reviewing some images taken from the Pan-Starrs 1 telescope.

The observation system is located on Haleakala, atop a volcano more than 3,000 meters high on the island of Maui, capturing images of the Earth’s sky every night and recording the results with the world’s highest resolution cameras.

Pan-Starrs 1 is designed to hunt down “near-Earth objects”, most of which are directional meteors that pass through space around our planet and travel at an average speed of nearly 65,000 km. /H.

On that fateful day, Weryk spotted a bright dot traveling at nearly 322,000 km/h, more than four times normal.

“Oumuamua”

Weryk quickly informed his colleagues. Together they traced the mysterious bright dot through images from other observatories, but the more they analyzed it, the more they found that this “bright dot” was behaving puzzlingly.

According to scientists, this is a small-sized object, only about an ordinary neighborhood. Given the puzzling light changes as it moves through space, this object can take on a very unusual shape.

Some scientists think that the strange object has a long and smooth shape, like a space cigar. Others think the object is clear and flat, like a pizza in the middle of the galaxy.

The most unusual thing is the direction of the object’s flight. Instead of moving in an elliptical path driven by the Sun’s gravity, the bright dot appears to move in a straight line against the gravitational pull of the central star of the Solar System.

The scientists concluded that the bright dot Weryk detected did not “behave” like any other object ever recorded.

They called the bright dot of September 13, 2017 an “interstellar object” – a “guest” from beyond the Solar System and visiting our region of space.

In the International Astronomical Union (IAU) records, this object is identified as 1I/2017 U1. Scientists also gave it the nickname “Oumuamua” – Hawaiian word for “reconnaissance”.

The Mystery of the “Reconnaissance”

Oumuamua or 1I/2017 U1 moves as if it doesn’t obey the law of gravitation, as if it were being pushed away by an additional force. Normally, comets also have the same ability to move by releasing gaseous matter and forming a comet’s tail.

But the image observed by scientists shows that 1I/2017 U1 has no “tail”. The special telescopes also did not detect any signs that 1I/2017 U1 released any other matter in a similar way to comets, whether water vapor or dust.

“This is clearly an anomalous object. Unfortunately, we have no new records of Oumuamua because it is too dim and too far away,” a NASA video shared.

A team of researchers once thought that 1I/2017 U1 was a “tiny comet”, and its tail consisted of “unusual chemical compounds” that telescopes could not pick up. Another group speculates that 1I/2017 U1 is composed of frozen hydrogen gas. With this hypothesis, they both explained the object’s strange shape and were able to explain its rapid “disappearance”: 1I/2017 U1 had mostly evaporated when entering the Solar System.

The boldest hypothesis about 1I/2017 U1 comes from Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard University. “Oumuamua” doesn’t behave like ordinary interstellar objects, like comets, because it’s simply not an interstellar object, he said. He acknowledged the possibility that 1I/2017 U1 is the product of an extraterrestrial civilization.

Arguing in a 2018 paper, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Loeb and his colleague Shmuel Bialy suggest that “Oumuamua” has “non-gravitational acceleration”.

The two scientists identified the object as the “forgotten car” of aliens, drifting between regions of interstellar space like a piece of scrap. But there is also the possibility of a “functionally active probe”, introduced into the Solar System for exploration.

Loeb and Bialy suggest that the second hypothesis is even more likely than the first. According to them, in the case that 1I/2017 U1 is an object floating in mid-galactic space, the probability of it passing by Earth is absurdly low.

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains – no matter how unbelievable – is the truth,” Loeb quoted Sherlock Holmes, the famous fictional detective character. by writer Arthur Conan Doyles, about his hypothesis.

Argumentative

Loeb and Bialy’s arguments naturally sparked countless arguments and angry reactions from colleagues. Paul M. Sutter, an astrophysicist at Ohio University, insists it is impossible that 1I/2017 U1 is an alien spacecraft.

“The authors of that article insulted honest scientific research by referring to this hypothesis,” he wrote.

Benjamin Weiner, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, criticized Avi Loeb for promoting speculative hypotheses, and forcing other scientists to work hard to use science to disprove speculations stemming from grandfather.

The media then examined Avi Loeb’s life with the lens of curiosity rather than trust in the bold scientific hypothesis he pursued.

Criticism did not make Loeb falter. He followed up with a colleague at the Korea Institute of Astronomy and Space Science to publish more research that disproves the Oumuamua hypothesis as “frozen hydrogen”.

Their work is dense with complex equations, leading to the conclusion that it is impossible for a “frozen hydrogen” object to survive an interstellar journey like Oumuamua.

Avi Loeb has just finished a book that elaborates on his hypothesis – “Aliens: The First Signs of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life”.

Loeb believes that science has a stronghold of prejudice that tries to silence him, although they cannot prove why “Oumuamua” moves against all rules.

In the book, Loeb argues that the only way to explain Oumuamua’s anomalous acceleration (provided that the hypothesis of the opposite discharge of matter is not used) is to assume the object is propelled by solar radiation. God.

For photons from the Sun to be able to exert a repulsive force on an object’s surface, 1I/2017 U1 must be impossibly thin and no more than 1 mm thick, with a very low density of matter and a substantial surface area.

This object will act like a sail, but the thrust is generated by light and not from wind as on Earth. The natural world does not make its own sails.

“Oumuamua was certainly designed, built and launched by alien intelligence,” writes Avi Loeb.