China has sent ships to investigate, according to the Malaysian government.
The Chinese government said one of its satellites spotted the object on March 18, about 75 miles west of the location released by Australia earlier this week.
A grainy image of the latest find was tweeted Saturday by Chinese state television, CCTV. It is dated two days after the two images released by Australia.
The search for the missing airliner has now entered a third week, with the main hope for a breakthrough hinging on planes and ships being able to locate floating objects picked up by satellites in a desolate stretch of ocean almost as close to Antarctica as to Australia.
On Saturday, Malaysia's Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein interrupted a news conference to say he had just received "breaking news" from the Chinese ambassador, that a new satellite image had been received, showing a floating object in the Indian Ocean.
"They will be sending ships to verify," he said. The object was 74 feet by 43 feet, the Malaysian government later said.
A Boeing 777-200 is 209 feet long, with a wingspan of 199 feet and a tail height of 60 feet, but its body is only 20 feet in diameter.
The search for any debris from the plane is complicated by strong and unpredictable currents in this part of the Indian Ocean.
The two objects spotted by satellite last Sunday that are the focus of the Australian-led search could already have drifted more than 100 miles, experts said.
For the past two days, surveillance planes have been passing back and forth over the Indian Ocean to try and locate those objects, without any result.
The search has become a race against time — before the objects drift too far, break up or sink in heavy ocean swells, and because bad weather is expected to set in Sunday and last through next week.
Source : Tempo
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