What is thought to be the first Interstellar Asteroid is going to be checked for "alien technology" according to the BBC. The strange cigar-shaped object was spotted speeding towards the sun on 19th October and is thought to have originated around another star. The object is now going to be examined by scientists from the Breakthrough Listen project, which was funded by Russian billionaire Yuri Miller. Scientists from Breakthrough Listen along with experts from SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) are going to undertake the endeavour of listening for radio signals from the strange object from the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.
A discovery which has the UFO world buzzing
A report such as this would not be out of the ordinary on a UFO conspiracy site, but the fact that so many mainstream scientists have taken interest in this has set off a wave of rumours on the internet and has truly got the UFO world buzzing. The initial observations that were made by astronomers noted that the object in question had unusual characteristics. The object, which has been given the name Oumuamua, which translates into "messenger from afar arriving first," in Hawaiian, is seriously being considered as a potential candidate for a genuine artificial object which has entered our solar system, possibly with extraterrestrial origins.
Observations of the object will begin this Wednesday, and from the distance, it currently lies within the solar system, approximately twice the distance of Earth from the sun, the Green Bank observatories high-powered equipment is capable of detecting the faintest of radio signals being emitted from the object.
Measurements taken from the object suggest that it is compromised of mainly metal and some rock, but it consists of little to no water or ice. The size of the object is estimated to be roughly comparable to New York's Empire State Building.
One of Breakthrough Listen's advisers and chair of the astronomy department of Harvard Avi Loeb wrote in an email "The more I study this object, the more unusual it appears, making me wonder if it is an artificial probe sent by an alien civilization." Studies of the object have shown that it is spinning on its axis every 7 hours and is expected to pass Jupiter and Pluto in the 2020's.
For many years people have asked the question are we alone in the universe. Since the alleged crash of an alien spaceship at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 many conspiracy theorists have claimed that governments have been hiding the truth from us about the answer to this eternal question of humankind. As technology has progressed and our understanding of the universe has matured, many scientists who once scoffed at the idea of life beyond our planet are now seriously examining the possibility of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations. Maybe this object called Oumuamua could turn out to be the messenger from beyond the stars we have all been waiting for.
