Alien Probe or Eccentric Comet? This Space Mystery Won’t End
In September 2017, a very strange object streaked fast across the solar system and passed close to the sun before heading away. Shiny, oblong and potentially hundreds of feet in length, the object was unlike anything scientists had ever seen. Not exactly an asteroid. Not exactly a comet.
Five years later, scientists are still arguing over the object, which they’ve named 'Oumuamua. That’s Hawaiian for “scout.” It’s a debate that could shake up whole fields of science.
On one side is a camp led by iconoclast Harvard physicist and noted alien-hunter Avi Loeb, who contends that we should at least consider the possibility that ‘Oumuamua is an alien spacecraft. On the other side is a loose confederation of scientists who argue for more pedestrian explanations for ‘Oumuamua’s mysteries.