Mysterious Oumuamua Space Object Could Be ‘Lightsail’ Sent From Another Civilization: Study

This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid: 'Oumuamua. This unique object was discovered on 19 October 2017 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii. Subsequent observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and other observatories around the world show that it was travelling through space for millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system. European Southern Observatory/M. Kornmesser

The mysterious Oumuamua object that was spotted in the Solar System could be “a lightsail of artificial origin,” according to a Harvard study published earlier this month.

“Considering an artificial origin, one possibility is that ‘Oumuamua is a lightsail, floating in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment,” researchers said in the paper (pdf) on Nov. 1. It noted that the object had “peculiar acceleration” through space.