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Nearly six years ago, a space object roughly the size of a football field baffled scientists as it zipped through our solar system. The irregular shape and motion of the object, dubbed ‘Oumuamua, led to one of the most controversial astronomical mysteries, with theories that ranged from asteroid to alien probe. But a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature offers another answer: ‘Oumuamua is a typical comet that expelled gas in an odd way as it traveled through our solar system. “We’ve gone through every weird, crazy, possible theory—ideas that stretch the imagination to match all of these observed...

A mysterious object in our solar system could be an alien mothership sending smaller probes to monitor the Earth, according to a new draft report co-authored by the head of the Pentagon’s UFO research office.Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon’s new All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, put forward the theory in a recently released, but still-unfinalized paper he wrote with a long-serving head of Harvard University’s astronomy department, Abraham Loeb.AF vets testify that UFOs shut down 10 nukes, shot missile out of skyThe paper explores the idea that extraterrestrial life is already visiting us in the form of ʻOumuamua, which in...

The origins of Comet 96P/Machholz (96P) have puzzled scientists for decades since its discovery. It is a four-mile-wide “sungrazer” object with a host of weird properties that suggest it may be an interloper from another star system. For instance, 96P’s composition is extremely unique and its orbit is highly tilted, causing it to pass closer to the Sun than almost any other comet. These features, among others, suggest that 96P may have been rerouted into our solar system by a chance encounter with Jupiter after its voyage across interstellar space. In an ironic twist, however, the comet's interactions with Jupiter...

A small meteor that hit Earth in 2014 was from another star system, and may have left interstellar debris on the seafloor. An object from another star system crashed into Earth in 2014, the United States Space Command (USSC) confirmed in a newly-released memo. The meteor ignited in a fireball in the skies near Papua New Guinea, the memo states, and scientists believe it possibly sprinkled interstellar debris into the South Pacific Ocean. The confirmation backs up the breakthrough discovery of the first interstellar meteor—and, retroactively, the first known interstellar object of any kind to reach our solar system—which was...

A fireball that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system, according to a recent memo(opens in new tab) released by the U.S. Space Command (USSC). The object, a small meteorite measuring just 1.5 feet (0.45 meter) across, slammed into Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 8, 2014, after traveling through space at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h) — a speed that far exceeds the average velocity of meteors that orbit within the solar system, according to a 2019 study of the object published in the preprint database arXiv. 2019...

Avi Loeb, bestselling author and the former chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, penned an op-ed in Scientific American this week positing that the universe could have been formed in a lab by an “advanced technological civilization.”….

...Oumuamua took the world by storm in October 2017 when it was identified as the first known visitor from another star system. A pair of Harvard scientists suggested the long and thin object was a spacecraft, sparking a frantic flurry of scans by astronomers as it flew by.... ...Perhaps strangest of all was that the object appeared to accelerate on its journey, suggesting it was powered by something.... The new study lines up with research published last year....

May 13, 2021May 13, 2021 by Nancy AtkinsonExtrasolar Object Interceptor Would be Able to Chase Down the Next Oumuamua or Borisov and Actually Return a SampleWhat if we had the ability to chase down interstellar objects passing through our Solar System, like Oumuamua or Comet Borisov? Such a spacecraft would need to be ready to go at a moment’s notice, with the capacity to increase speed and change direction quickly.That’s the idea behind a new mission concept called the Extrasolar Object Interceptor and Sample Return spacecraft. It has received exploratory funding from NASA through its Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program.“Bringing...

An oddly shaped object hurtling through space led Israeli astrophysicist Avi Loeb to write a book proposing the existence of outer space civilizations.Dinosaurs might still roam the Earth if a giant ancient asteroid had taken a slightly different course. If Prof. Avi Loeb had followed his expected trajectory, he’d have become a philosopher rather than Harvard University’s longtime chair of astronomy and founding director of its Black Hole Initiative. And if a shiny space object dubbed ‘Oumuamua hadn’t deviated from an orbit shaped by the Sun’s gravity, Loeb wouldn’t have written his bestselling Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life...

“Some scientists find my hypothesis unfashionable, outside of mainstream science, even dangerously ill conceived,” writes Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard. “But the most egregious error we can make, I believe, is not to take this possibility seriously enough.” So begins Loeb’s new book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. Loeb is the director of the school’s Institute for Theory and Computation, and founding director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, and he wants you to take the possibility of aliens seriously. Back in October 2017, our solar system received a strange visitor, unlike any seen before. Scientists...

Last year, an extraordinary thing happened: for the first time in recorded history, astronomers and astrophysicists observed an interstellar object enter and leave our solar system. Over the years, they’ve documented plenty of comets, asteroids, and other cosmic bodies but all have been gravitationally bound to an orbit within our star system. This object, named ‘Oumuamua, came from outside our system, from a star or molecular cloud tens or even hundreds of millions of light-years away, and then left.

May 8, 2020May 8, 2020 by Evan GoughA Cool Idea to Catch Up With an Interstellar Visitor Poor, dim-witted humanity. We used to think we were the center of everything. That wasn’t that long ago, and even though we’ve made tremendous advancements in our understanding of our situation here in space, we still have huge blind spots.For one, we’re only now waking up to the reality of interstellar objects passing through our Solar System. In 2017, Oumuamua came for a brief visit, and was confirmed as an interstellar object. It’ll never return, and will spend an eternity travelling through the...

In the first of these new images, taken on Nov. 16, the comet was approximately 203 million miles from Earth, seen in front of a distant spiral galaxy known as 2MASX J10500165-0152029, according to a NASA statement. You can see the comet's tail of dust up to the right. You can also see that the object's bright core looks smudged, as Hubble was imaging the object while also tracking its movement. In both images, 2I/Borisov has been artificially colored blue so that details can be seen in the coma, or envelope of dust and material that surrounds the comet's core,...

Astronomers have captured the best and closest image to date of interstellar comet 2I/Borisov, a visitor that originated from outside of our solar system and is currently passing through. On Sunday, the comet will pass within 190 million miles of Earth on its closest approach before continuing on through our solar system. As it gets closer to Earth, the icy comet is shedding more gas and dust through its tail through evaporation. Astronomers at Yale University used the W.M. Keck Observatory's Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer, located in Hawaii, to provide the closest look at the interstellar comet since it was first...

From the tallest peak in Hawaii to a high plateau in the Andes, some of the biggest telescopes on Earth will point towards a faint smudge of light over the next few weeks. The same patch of sky will draw the attention of Gennady Borisov, an amateur astronomer in Crimea, and many other hobbyists who will sacrifice proper sleep and doze through their day jobs rather than miss this golden opportunity. What they’re looking for is a rare visitor that is about to make its closest approach to the Sun. After that, they have just months to grab as much...

Hubble Space Telescope. The workhorse telescope has given us a photo of the new interstellar comet 2I/Borisov... 2I/Borisov has wandered into our Solar System from the deep cold of interstellar space, but nobody knows from whence it came, or how long it’s been travelling. Boris only the second object we’ve observed that’s come into our Solar System from somewhere else in the galaxy, and the Hubble snapped photos of it speeding along at about 177,000 kph (110,000 mph.) So far, the Hubble images are the sharpest ones yet. Comets contain a lot of water ice and other volatiles. When they...

C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) this summer provided renewed opportunities to study material left by outgassing. Using data gathered by the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), an international team of astronomers found that 2I/Borisov contains cyanide. Since comets and asteroids are essentially material left over from the formation of a planetary system, these studies will allow scientists to place constraints on the physical and chemical processes involved in the formation of extrasolar planets. Basically, it's like being able to study extrasolar planets without having to go there physically. Prof. Fitzsimmons told Universe Today, materials from other planetary systems, delivered to our doorstep—or at...

The team used the Osiris instrument at the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias in La Palma, Spain, to obtain visible spectra - measurements of sunlight reflected by Borisov. By studying these spectra, scientists can draw conclusions about its chemical composition, including how it might differ from comets that were "born" around the Sun. "The spectrum is the red side of the comet's total spectrum, so the only thing we can see in the spectrum is the slope," said Miquel Serra Ricart, from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Tenerife. In coming days, the team will obtain measurements of the...

A comet first spotted by a Ukrainian amateur astronomer looks to be just the second known object to visit our cosmic neighborhood from beyond the solar system. What could be an even bigger deal is that this one was discovered as it's still approaching us. The comet was found by Gennady Borisov of Crimea on Aug. 30, and went by the temporary name GB00234 until very recently. After being watched by several other observatories over the past few weeks, it was given the official name of C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) by the Minor Planet Center on Wednesday. It appeared to follow...

It is the first known object to pass through the solar system from outside, but experts have failed to explain where the object, called 'Oumuamua' came from. The mysterious cigar-shaped projectile - formally named the object 1I/2017 U1 - defies description with characteristics resembling both a comet and an asteroid. Oumuamua...spins like a coke bottle and accelerates like a comet, but without the gas jets often seen trailing them. The study’s co-author, Dr. Matthew Knight, an associate research scientist in the University of Maryland Department of Astronomy, said: “The alien spacecraft hypothesis is a fun idea, but … our preference...