Cigar-shaped asteroid could be an alien spaceship with broken engines due to its bizarre tumbling motion, top astronomer claims
The object, dubbed Ouamuamua, travels at well over 190,000 mph
A MYSTERIOUS cigar-shaped asteroid speeding past Earth could be a broken alien spacecraft, a boffin has claimed.
A team of scientists led by Stephen Hawking are investigating whether the object, dubbed Oumuamua, was sent by aliens.
Now one astronomer believes its bizarre tumbling motion could be a sign it's engines could be broken.
Dr Jason Wright, a professor at Penn State University, says: "Such derelict craft would, if they are not travelling so fast that they escape the Galaxy, eventually thermalise with the stars and end up drifting around like any other interstellar comet or asteroid."
His theory comes as Oumuamua is going to be scanned for signs of alien life, after astronomers from the University of Hawaii were baffled when they spotted it passing by Earth.
The space rock is currently twice as far from us as the sun and will eventually shoot passed Jupiter next year.
The object is now headed away from the Earth and the Sun on its way out of the solar system
Researchers involved in SETI- the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence - will be turning a powerful dish telescope towards the body in the hope of getting closer to the truth of what exactly Oumuamua is.
From 8pm today, the giant dish – the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world – will “listen” to the object across four radio frequency bands spanning one to 12 gigahertz.
Lead scientist Dr Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley Seti Research Centre in California, said: “Oumuamua’s presence within our solar system affords Breakthrough Listen an opportunity to reach unprecedented sensitivities to possible artificial transmitters and demonstrate our ability to track nearby, fast-moving objects.
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“Whether this object turns out to be artificial or natural, it’s a great target for Listen.”
Mysteriously, it is actually the wrong shape for an asteroid, which further confuses researchers - but also does not show any signs of an engine, which may cast doubt on the alien spacecraft theory.
The object is currently about two astronomical units (AU) from Earth, or twice the distance between the Earth and sun.
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