Harvard scientists say mysterious interstellar object could be an alien spacecraft

Oumuamua.
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Beyond Space)

Oumuamua, the first interstellar object spotted in the solar system, could very well be an alien spacecraft, two Harvard researchers say.

The size of a stadium, Oumuamua is flat and elongated, and accelerated as it tumbled past the sun. It's very different from the typical asteroid or comet, and in a paper that will be published Nov. 12 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Avi Loeb and Shmuel Bialy write that it "may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.