Strange cigar-shaped object in our solar system ‘could be an alien probe’, scientists say

Last month, for the first time ever, astronomers spotted an object which had entered our Solar System from interstellar space – a strange ‘cigar’ up to 1,200ft long.

Now researchers from the Seti – Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence – project are to scan the object, to see if it’s actually an alien probe.

It’s certainly a mysterious asteroid – scientists initially thought it was a comet, but reclassified it.

Researchers from the Seti project Breakthrough Listen are to ‘listen’ to the asteroid using the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia.

A statement said, ‘Researchers working on long-distance space transportation have previously suggested that a cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimise friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust.

‘While a natural origin is more likely, there is currently no consensus on what that origin might have been, and Breakthrough Listen is well positioned to explore the possibility that Oumuamua could be an artifact.’

Scientists believe that it was travelling through space for millions of years before arriving near our Sun, according to results published in Nature.

On 19 October 2017, the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawai`i picked up a faint point of light – and scientists realised that its orbit showed that it came from the space between the stars.

At first scientists thought it was a comet, but it was reclassified as an asteroid and named 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua).

Scientists suggest that Oumuamua is dense, possibly rocky or with high metal content, lacks significant amounts of water or ice, and that its surface is now dark and reddened due to the effects of irradiation from cosmic rays over millions of years.

It is estimated to be at least 400 metres long.

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To avoid confusion because the image above IS NOT a photograph, here is the actual photo

Raw image straight from ESO's Very Large Telescope. 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua), the interstellar asteroid, is the tiny dot at the centre, above the brighter star. Though actually faint, in this image the asteroid appears bright.

Crédit:

ESO/O.Hainaut

Nasa schedules press conference as it announces breakthrough in mission to find Earth-like planets

Nasa will be holding a press conference to reveal a major breakthrough from its planet-finding telescope, it has announced.

The Kepler space telescope is tasked with finding other planets — some of which exists in a ‘habitable zone’, meaning they could support life.

The press conference, which will be live-streamed on its agency’s website, will take place on Thursday (December 14).

Nasa has said little else about its latest discovery, although added it was made with the help of Google artificial intelligence.

It is thought the announcement will revolve around exoplanets – Earth-sized planets that orbit around their own stars.

These are considered the best hope of finding alien life.

Nasa said that four engineers and scientists would take part in the press conference, including Paul Hertz, who leads Nasa’s astrophysics division, a senior Google software engineer, and two scientists.

Nasa launched the Kepler telescope, named after a 17th century German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, in 2009.

It is designed to survey a portion of the Milky Way to discover these Earth-size exoplanets.

It concluded its original mission in 2012 after finding a total of 2,337 exoplanets and 4,496 more ‘candidates’ in 30 habitable zones.

In 2014, Kepler began a new exoplanet-hunting mission, K2, which has confirmed the existence of 178 exoplanets to date..

K2 is also “introducing new research opportunities to study young stars, supernovae and other cosmic phenomena.”

In February, Nasa said it had found the “holy grail” – an entire solar system that could support life.