Harvard physicist makes case on how 'Oumuamu could have been an alien spacecraft - Fox News

A physicist has weighed in on the mystery surrounding the interstellar object 'Oumuamua,' which flew past Earth back in 2017 at an unusually high speed.

Harvard professor Avi Loeb remarked during an interview with Salon that it's possible the fast, cigar-shaped object was an interstellar spacecraft. .

Usually that force comes from the rocket effect of the cometary tail, but there was no cometary tail

Loeb told the website there was another object discovered that exhibited an excess push called 2020-SO, which he said ended up being a rocket booster from a failed mission of lunar lander, Surveyor II that was launched in 1966. He said because that object was artificially made and had no cometary trail, it "provides evidence" that we can tell the difference between a rock and an object -- like the rocket booster -- that is pushed by sunlight

In November 2018, a study published by Loeb and others at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggested 'Oumuamua could be "a lightsail of artificial origin" sent from another civilization. However, the researcher who discovered 'Oumuamua, Canadian physicist and astronomer Robert Weryk, said the idea it was from another civilization was just "wild speculation."

MYSTERY SURROUNDING INTERSTELLAR 'OUMUAMUA DEEPENS AS RESEARCHERS CHALLENGE EARLIER THEORY

NASA confirmed that it is the "first object ever seen in our solar system that is known to have originated elsewhere."