Hawking says we should be open to the possibility that the cigar-shaped asteroid flying through our solar system could be an alien probe.
A cigar-shaped asteroid speeding through our solar system made headlines as the first recorded interstellar visitor to our neighborhood, and now famed physicist Stephen Hawking is making the rather extraordinary claim that it could be an alien probe. The asteroid, nicknamed Oumuamua, is certainly shaped rather unusually and Hawking told the Daily Star that it is in just the shape that would be the most likely architecture for a spacecraft of interstellar origin.
Hawking said that such a shape would keep friction low and avoid damage from gas and dust in space, and researchers on Earth who have looked into space transportation have proposed similar designs. Hawking acknowledged that a natural origin is far more likely, but scientists should at least be open to the possibility that Oumuamua is from an alien species.
Researchers from the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) plan to turn their dish telescope toward the asteroid to learn more about it. Hawking himself has been pursuing proof of alien civilizations with his “Breakthrough Listen” project.