Nearly seven weeks after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 mysteriously disappeared, authorities in Australia say they've found what they're calling an "object of interest."
According to CNN, the object was found just along the coast in the southwestern part of the country — hundreds of miles away from where the extensive underwater search is taking place.
Authorities aren't saying much about what was found on the shore, though according to NBC, it could be a piece of metal with rivets.
ABC Australia notes officials with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau are looking at photos of the "object of interest" to figure out whether it might be wreckage from the missing flight. The object is reportedly about 8 feet long.
But the agency's chief commissioner told CNN officials aren't hopeful that it could be from the plane: "The more we look at it, the less excited we get."
This news comes as searchers off the Australian coast get closer to mapping out the seafloor for the entire search area.
According to The Telegraph, an unmanned submarine has mapped out 80 percent of the search area after 10 missions, and now officials in Australia are looking at the possibility of using stronger sonar to intensify the search.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the country will do everything "humanly" possible to find the missing airliner. The plane had 239 people on board when it mysteriously disappeared back on March 8.
