A HARVARD professor claims an odd space object to enter the solar system is not another rock formation but rather, evidence of intelligent life outside the earth. Avi Loeb, Harvard’s Department of Astronomy chair, believes aliens dropped some space garbage over earth’s atmosphere in 2017, and it’s proof that life beyond humans exists. Loeb’s upcoming […]
A HARVARD professor claims an odd space object to enter the solar system is not another rock formation but rather, evidence of intelligent life outside the earth.
Avi Loeb, Harvard’s Department of Astronomy chair, believes aliens dropped some space garbage over earth’s atmosphere in 2017, and it’s proof that life beyond humans exists.
Loeb’s upcoming book, “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth,” lays out a case for why a recent object that flew into our solar system might be proof that life outside exists.
On September 6, 2017, an object from the star Vega – a close star about 25 light-years away – entered our atmosphere only to move closer to the sun on September 9. By the end of the month, it flew by Venus at a rate of 58,900 miles per hour.
It then came close to earth on October 7 before it began “moving swiftly toward the constellation Pegasus and the blackness beyond,” Loeb wrote in his book.
The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in a Hawaiian observatory first spotted the object using the Pan-STARRS most well-defined telescope on earth.
There, the object was monikered “Oumuamua,” which is Hawaiian for “scout.” The pronunciation is “oh-moo-ah-moo-ah.”
Although the object was just a small 100-yard-long object, those in the scientific community looked to it as a learning point.
It was the the first interstellar object ever detected inside our solar system, and given its trajectory, some astronomers have declared it was not bound by the sun’s gravitational pull.
Although no clear photos of the object were taken, observatories trained their telescopes on the object for almost two weeks, allowing data to be collected that denied a simple explanation of just another comet.
“What would happen if a caveman saw a cellphone?” Loeb asked. “He’s seen rocks all his life, and he would have thought it was just a shiny rock.”
Loeb took fault with some astronomers claiming the object was a comet, saying it was akin to letting “the familiar to define what we might discover.”
Loeb said astronomers began looking at the object’s dimensions, and the fact that it reflected sunlight at a similar brightness every eight hours, suggesting that was how long it needed to complete a full rotation.
Astronomers said the object was about five to ten times longer than it was wide, relating it to a sort of cigar shape.
Loeb says no natural space object looks like that.
“This would make ‘Oumuamua’s geometry more extreme by at least a few times in aspect ratio – or its width to its height – than the most extreme asteroids or comets that we have ever seen,” Loeb wrote.
“Oumuamua was unusually bright. It was at least ‘ten times more reflective than typical solar system [stony] asteroids or comets,'” Loeb continued.
Relating it to a shiny space metal, Loeb’s assertions that it was evident of extraterrestrial life is because of how it moved.
“The excess push away from the sun,” Loeb wrote, “that was the thing that broke the camel’s back.”
Normally, an object would move faster the closer it gets towards the sun, only to be pushed back and get slower the further it goes.
However, the object instead accelerated “slightly, but to a highly statistically significant extent,” Loeb wrote.
Given that it would mean the object had some other force pulling it along outside of the sun’s pull, Loeb believes it might just be something extraterrestrial life had dropped.
However, the notion that life outside earth exists is seen as a taboo in the scientific community.
“Some people do not want to discuss the possibility that there are other civilizations out there,” he ended.
