The mysterious Oumuamua, a cigar-shaped object from another stellar system recently detected, emits “no artificial signals,” according to the first observations of scientists looking for an intelligent extraterrestrial life, made public Thursday.
The rocky object, whose name means messenger in the Hawaiian language, was spotted on October 19 with the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawaii tracking objects near the Earth.
Since some spirits are warming up. Could the object be the fruit of an extraterrestrial civilization?
In a study published in the scientific journal Nature on November 21, a team of researchers estimated that it was an asteroid, 400 meters long and only 40 meters wide.
This unusual form is unprecedented among the many asteroids and listed comets that have formed in our solar system, according to these researchers who concluded that this asteroid was interstellar in nature.
According to these astronomers, this unusual object has traveled alone through the Milky Way for hundreds of millions of years before moving into our solar system.
For its part, the program Breakthrough Listen, which is dedicated to the search for an extraterrestrial technological life in the Universe, pointed Wednesday the powerful radio telescope of Green Bank (West Virginia) on Oumuamua.
“There has not been evidence of artificial signals from this object so far (…) but monitoring and data analysis continues,” said Breakthrough Listen in a statement.
“We do not see anything that has been emitting continuously since Oumuamua,” Andrew Siemion, head of Breakthrough Listen Laboratory at UC Berkeley, told AFP.
The researchers will continue their observations of the object.
“Most likely, Oumuamua is an asteroid, ejected from its host star during chaotic events billions of years ago and found itself by chance in our solar system. But the other assumptions are so exciting that it’s worth looking closely, “he adds.
Backed by astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, the Breakthrough Listen program, launched in 2015, is dedicated to finding signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. It has $ 100 million.