Avi Loeb is director of the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University (USA). In the framework of what he calls “cosmic modesty,” which refers to the arrogance of believing that the human being is alone in the universe, the specialist insists with his hypothesis that the asteroid Oumuamua could be controlled by “intelligent beings.” This idea earned him the repudiation of his colleagues.
According to Loeb, Oumuamua may be “a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization,” while highlighting the possibility that it may be a “lightsail” that is “floating in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment,” he told The Washington Post.
“If it were part of an extraterrestrial craft, it would be the Brexit of the alien spaceships,” added Alan Fitzsimmons, astronomer at the University of the Queen (Northern Ireland, United Kingdom). However, he left open some possibility: “As a scientist, I can not say that I have 100% evidence that it is a natural object, it’s just that all observations can be linked to it.”
A Firm Stance
Despite the questions, Loeb does not change his thinking and insists that Oumuamua’s behavior “means it can’t be, as is commonly imagined, a clump of rock shaped like a long potato.” “If someone shows me evidence to the contrary, I will immediately back down,” he added.
The asteroid Oumuamua was discovered in Hawaii in 2017, and has an elongated appearance, about 400 meters long. At that time, it was indicated that this interstellar object was in motion at about 64,000 kilometers per hour and that it does not rotate around the Sun, but it did so from a direction in which the Lyra constellation is located. It will take years to cross the solar system and, once it does, it will not return.
