The Oumuamua Mystery Shook up the Search for Space Aliens

Last year, an enigmatic object named Oumuamua startled astronomers when it came streaking past the sun, giving humanity its first close-up look at an object from beyond our solar system. This year, the interstellar visitor did something even more remarkable: It made it respectable to talk about alien spaceships.

The turning point came in November, when Avi Loeb, the head of the astronomy department at Harvard University, co-wrote a paper saying that Oumuamua is so unusual that scientists should consider the possibility that it’s not a far-out comet or asteroid, as his colleagues assumed, but rather an artificial structure.

In other words, maybe it’s an interstellar craft built by extraterrestrials.

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Credit: Corey S. Powell, NBC MACH

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Oumuamua likely traveled through space for millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system.M. Kornmesser/European Southern Observatory / NASA