Omuamuma the Interstellar Asteroid

 Extra Terrestrial

By Avi Loeb

It was a few years ago that an interstellar asteroid type object sailed through our solar system. It's long cigar like shape was rather od and it drew lots of attention. When I said interstellar I meant that it came from outside the solar system. It is very rare for objects to travel accross space and enter into another solar system. It would have to have lots of propulsion for it to travel from one solar system to the next. It was first spotted from a super strong telescope in Hawaii and hence teh name of the asteroid is call Omuamuma . It's trajectory was rather odd as it sailed right on through ou solar system and pat the sun. Usually objects like this smash into a planet or get caught in some other body's orbit. Since it caught a lot of attention there was speculation that this miht be extraterrestrial. That is waht Harvard's Avi Loeb felt, and this wnet against the established grain of thought that does not really believe in life out there in the stars.

This large rock is rather strange and some of the facts miht lean into extra terrestrial origin. First off in order fo it to sail through our solar system it had to have lots of force pushing it. This could happe though a planet exploding and bits o debris go flying around or someone sent it for one purpose or another. At certain points it appeared to accelerate in order for it to maintain speed and accelaerate it would have to have somekind of fuel. the burn off should have eroded some of the rock o taken some of th ice of it's surface. There have been speculaions as to why it is able to do that, some have said tha the ice was made of hydrogen but i does not hold water. Pardon the pun.

What could possible fuel this rock to fly. There is no exhaust coming from a fuel supply. The author says it is light sails that ge there power from sunight. The next question is what is this rock and what is it's purpose. the author posits that is could be a buoy or some debris from an old space craft. The cilization that produced i could be extinct. While the author spend a good chunk o the book discussing this interstellar object he also goes into the speculation about life in the universe and what it would be like t make contact. The author also suggests exploring other planets and doing archaeology to disover the remnants of other civilizations to see what we could learn from them. This part can get real philosophical. He also goes into his background as well. Informative read.