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On October 19, 2017, astronomers at Hawaii’s PanSTARRS telescope detected an object in the sky that was moving unusually fast and likely had originated from another solar system. As it was the first interstellar object to be detected within our solar system, they named it Oumuamua, the Hawaiian word for a scout or messenger. (Artist depiction in Wikipedia)
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An article at Scientific American describes six unusual facts about Oumuamua. The first one being that astronomers didn’t expect such an object to exist but the most unusual fact about it is that it deviates from an orbit that is shaped by the gravitational force of our sun. As the object is moving, in a hyperbolic trajectory, the question arises what gives it the extra acceleration. As Oumuamua’s acceleration has not been seen with asteroids astronomers wandered whether the object may be an Unidentified Foreign Object sent to our solar system by an alien civilization.
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It is known that there are conditions similar to those on Earth in a quarter of all planetary systems around other stars and there are 100 billion stellar systems in our galaxy the Milky Way. Also 100 billion galaxies exist in the known universe making the existence of other intelligent beings elsewhere likely. Could other intelligent beings send a scout to observe our solar system? Future discoveries about the Cosmos will unravel mysteries such as Oumuamua, fast radio bursts, or what happens to space-time inside a black hole.
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