这个星体去年飞经地球，可能是外星飞船

美国哈佛大学的天文学家认为，去年飞经地球的细长形神秘天体奥陌陌（Oumuamua）可能是外星人乘坐的宇宙飞船。

奥陌陌在夏威夷语中的意思是“首次到来的远方信使”。2017年10月，位于夏威夷的泛星巡天望远镜率先发现了这个天外来客。其通体深红，长约400米，形似雪茄。奥陌陌在途经太阳系时突然加速，其独特的速度和飞行轨迹令科学家们感到困惑不解。

两位哈佛大学的天文学家认为，从奥陌陌的形状来看，它可能是一个“探测器，完全由某种外星文明操控，被故意送到地球附近。”

施姆尔·比亚利和亚伯拉罕·洛布是哈佛-史密森尼天体物理中心的天文学家，他们在新近合著的论文中猜测，奥陌陌可能是“一片光帆，是非自然的产物。”

这两位科学家并没有断言奥陌陌绝对是外星人的造物（他们在论文中承认，这种情形是“外来的”）。不过，两人判断，它的形状应该是来自太阳系以外的地区。

去年，科学家们将奥陌陌称作“星际天体”，认定它既不是小行星也不是彗星。虽然彗星在所谓“放气”的过程中也会加速飞行，但奥陌陌的形状缺少彗星在熔解期间四周环绕的大团尘埃。

据美国全国广播公司（NBC）旗下新闻部门报道，哈佛大学的研究文章将发表在11月12日刊发的《天体物理期刊通讯》（The Astrophysical Journal Letters）上。但它的论断并未让所有人信服。

多伦多大学士嘉堡校区行星科学研究中心的研究员亚伦·杰克逊向美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）表示：“我完全不相信，老实说，我觉得这项研究有很大的瑕疵。（美国天文学家）卡尔·萨根说过：‘超凡脱俗的论点需要超乎寻常的证据。’这份报告的证据严重不足，更不要提超乎寻常的证据了。”（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审校：夏林

The mysterious, elongated object named Oumuamua that hurtled past Earth last year could have been an alien spacecraft, according to astronomers from Harvard University.

Oumuamua—or “messenger from afar arriving first” in Hawaiian—was first discovered in October 2017 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii. The shape was dark red, roughly oval, and flat, estimated to be a quarter-mile long. Oumuamua baffled scientists last year due to its unique speed and trajectory: as it passed through our solar system, Oumuamua accelerated.

According to two Harvard astronomers, the shape could have been a “fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.”

In their new paper, Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggest Oumamua could have been “a lightsail of artificial origin.”

The scientists are not claiming with certainty that Oumamua was definitely of alien origin (they admit in their paper that scenario is “exotic”), but the shape was determined to have come from outside our solar system.

Oumuamua was dubbed an “interstellar object” when scientists decided it was neither an asteroid or a comet; while comets can speed up in a process known as “outgassing,” the shape lacked the cloud of dust that surrounds a melting comet.

The Harvard paper will be published Nov. 12 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, NBC News reports. Not everyone, however, is convinced of its argument.

“I am distinctly unconvinced and honestly think the study is rather flawed,” Alan Jackson, fellow at the Centre for Planetary Sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough, told CNN. “Carl Sagan once said, ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ and this paper is distinctly lacking in evidence, nevermind extraordinary evidence.”