Astronomer Avi Loeb, who previously studied the first interstellar asteroid Oumuamua, said that all signs allegedly point to its artificial origin. The scientist, who outlined his hypothesis in the book Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth, also criticized the scientific community for attempts to write off the unusual properties of the object for natural causes, which violates the principle of Occam’s razor. This is reported on Phys.org.
Researchers discovered Oumuamua in October 2017, when they recorded an object moving at high speed. Experts decided that it could not be gravitationally bound to the solar system, and flew in from another star. After the alleged interstellar asteroid flew past the Sun, it deviated from its expected trajectory and accelerated under the influence of a mysterious force. This could be explained by the release of gas, like comets, but astronomers have found no evidence of emissions.
To explain the strange behavior, the researchers proposed new hypotheses, according to one of which Oumamua is composed of hydrogen ice. However, according to Loeb, all assumptions include what scientists have not encountered before, so the possibility that the asteroid is in fact an alien ship cannot be ruled out. According to the simulation, the shape of the space object is also unusual – it can be either long and thin, like a cigar, or flat and round. The last option corresponds to a spaceship in the form of a sail, which “pushes” stellar radiation.
According to Loeb, Oumuamua was at rest in relation to other stars, and, in fact, the solar system bumped into the object like an interstellar buoy.
However, the astronomer’s assumptions did not meet with support from the scientific community. For example, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel called Loeb a once respected scientist who, not finding support among his colleagues, began to play to the public. According to the findings of Alan Fitzsimmons, an astrophysicist at the University of Queens, Northern Ireland, the observed properties of the asteroid are consistent with the expected behavior of comet-like bodies ejected from another planetary system.
Loeb is known as the head of the Department of Astronomy at Harvard, he has published many scientific papers, as well as collaborations with Stephen Hawking. His research work covers a wide range of scientific fields, including the problem of the formation of the first stars in the Universe, the era of reionization, the formation of supermassive black holes, the search for extraterrestrial life, gravitational lensing involving planets, gamma-ray bursts, “21-centimeter cosmology”, the Lyman-alpha forest , as well as tidal destruction of stars and visualization of the “shadow” of black holes.