‘Oumuamua: Was Our First Interstellar Visitor Alien Technology?

In 2017, astronomers discovered something they had never seen before: an object from another star system passing through our own.

It was named ‘Oumuamua.

At first, it seemed like an unusual asteroid. But then things became stranger. Its brightness changed dramatically, it appeared to tumble through space, it showed no obvious comet tail, and scientists discovered that something was giving it a small extra push as it moved away from the Sun.

Most researchers believe ‘Oumuamua was a natural object. But Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb raised a much more controversial possibility: could it have been artificial technology, perhaps something similar to a light sail?

In this episode, we explore the full ‘Oumuamua mystery — from its discovery and strange behavior to the alien technology hypothesis, the scientific criticism, and the natural explanations that followed.

So what really passed through our Solar System?

A strange object from another world… or something built by one?

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