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Searching For Alien Life

TED Radio Hour

CHAPTER

Omuamua Could Be a UFO?

Omuamua was varying in brightness every seven point three four hours, or so we thought. The extreme brightness change led us to an unbelievable conclusion about its shape. In a simple way, it's wobbling like a top. While it is rotating around its short axis, it's also rolling around the long axis and nodding up and down. This very energetic, excited motion is almost certainly the result of it being violently tossed out of its home solar system. We think that omoama may be more of a flattened oval. So really more mysteries than answers at point. And the hope is that we'll see other interstellar visitors so we can begin to solve some of those mysteries.

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