Object said to be ‘long-lost spacecraft’ mysteriously accelerating as it heads toward Earth

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Could asteroid 1998 KY26 really be a long lost probe? (Picture: ESO/M. Kornmesser. Asteroid: T.) Scientists have been left baffled by a mystery object hurtling through space that…

Scientists have been left baffled by a mystery object hurtling through space that appears to be accelerating.

A study by the Georgia Institute of Technology has shown that what was thought to be an asteroid is speeding up due to something other than gravity.

The space rock is around 36ft in length, a relatively tiny rock, and spins once every 5.35minutes and is currently around 189million away from Earth.

According to the European Space Agency, it will come within 32million miles of us in 2028, but in 2039 it’ll be even closer at less than 10million miles.

Known as 1998 KY26, Harvard Professor Avi Loeb has suggested that the object is not a piece of space rock but actually a lost spacecraft.

Loeb theorised that it is really Phobos 1, which was launched by the Soviet Union in 1988 but disappeared months into its journey to Mars.

1998 KY26 was discovered to be moving faster than normal in 2023, after 25 years of telescope data collection.

Aerospace engineers Korbin Hansen and Masatoshi Hirabayashi concluded that the speed is not the result of any natural phenomenon.

‘We determined that 1998 KY26 is likely a dehydrated asteroid,’ they wrote in the study.

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