STEPHEN Hawking is leading an investigation into
whether the first object ever to arrive from OUTSIDE our solar system is a
spaceship from an alien civilisation. The first mysterious
object to reach our solar system was originally thought to be a comet or an
asteroid from within the system. But, scientists realised it was neither and
had travelled unimaginable disatances through interstellar space at almost 200,000
mph. Now, a scientific body led by Stephen Hawking is now trying to decipher
whether the “cigar-shaped” object is an alien probe or a previously unseen
natural phenomenon.
Professor of astrophysics
at Harvard University Avi Loeb said: "Perhaps the aliens have a mothership
that travels fast and releases baby spacecrafts that freely fall into planetary
system on a reconnaissance mission.
“If this object is natural
in origin, there should be many more like it in the solar system… and even if
most of them are natural, perhaps one of them will be found to be of artificial
origin, some space device or junk from an alien civilisation. The more I study
this object, the more unusual it appears, making me wonder whether it might be
an artificially made probe which was sent by an alien civilisation.”
The object’s official name
is A/2017 UI but has been dubbed “Oumuamua”, which loosely means “a messenger
that reaches from the distant past” in Hawaiian.
It was discovered by the
Pan-Starrs project at the University of Hawaii in October. The cigar-shaped
object is so rare that the International Astronomical Union has had to come up
with a new cataloguing system. The interstellar asteroid has been designated
I1/2017U1, with the "I" for interstellar and "1" because it
is the first ever to come from beyond the confines of our solar system.
A £75 million programme
that searches for evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth called Breakthrough
Listen, led by Stephen Hawking, is attempting to detect evidence of alien
technology transmitting from the object. Andrew Siemion, research centre
director at the Search for Extraterrestrial Life (Seti)- which works for
Breakthrough - said it would begin a ten-hour observation tomorrow for specific
signs of alien technology.
It will search on the
electromagnetic spectrum using the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia.
Dr Siemion said: “It’s
like a radio station you tune into with your car stereo. Nature doesn’t
broadcast on a very specific frequency, its smears it out across colour and
time. Technology behaves differently. It can compress electromagnetic energy
and so we look for those specific signs and for repeating patterns which nature
doesn’t tend to do. We look for structure.”
The object is a long
cylinder shape which researchers suggest a cigar or needle shape is the most
likely architecture for a spacecraft since this would minimise damage from
interstellar gas and dust. The object is hundreds of meters long but perhaps
only a tenth as high and wide, its shape has never been seen in space before.
Its speed us up to 190,000
mph and suggests it is not gravitationally bound to the Sun and will continue
its voyage back into interstellar space.
While scientists admit
that a natural origin is more likely, there is no consensus on its origin. Professor
Loeb said the arguments against an alien origin were that the object follows a
standard “Keplerian” orbit - elliptical orbit - shaped by the gravitational
force of the sun.
The object’s slightly red
hue and varying brightness are similar to objects in our system. The project
will fly past Jupiter next year and will hurtle beyond Pluto by the 2020s. Breakthrough
Listen is led by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner. He said: “Whether it's
artificial or not, we will definitely know more about this object.”
Astrophysicists theories
there are between one and almost ten “visitors” per year in our solar system
but they move so quickly that we have never seen one before.
In the author Arthur C
Clarke’s science fiction book "Rendezvous with Rama”, a team of
astronomers detects a cylindrical interstellar object entering the solar
system, which they initially believe to be an asteroid. But, on closer
inspection, they discover it is mankind’s first encounter with an alien
spacecraft. Prof Hawking has long warned how alien lifeforms visiting Earth
might crush humanity ‘with no more thought than as if they had trodden on an
ant’.
During an episode of
Discovery Channel TV special Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking he said:
“Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and
colonize whatever planets they could reach.
“If so, it makes sense for
them to exploit each new planet for material to build more spaceships so they
could move on. Who knows what the limits would be? We don't know much about
aliens, but we know about humans. If you look at history, contact between
humans and less intelligent organisms have often been disastrous from their
point of view, and encounters between civilizations with advanced versus primitive
technologies have gone badly for the less advanced.
“A civilization reading
one of our messages could be billions of years ahead of us. If so, they will be
vastly more powerful, and may not see us as any more valuable than we see
bacteria."
Via Express.co.uk
Well done ! This Explains the Theories so that a Lay Person can Understand it. Thank You!
ReplyDeleteNancy Silverman Baldonado