The mysterious Manhattan-sized interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has once again surprised scientists as new images appear to have no cometary tail in new images. Photographs taken by the R. Naves Observatory in Spain on Nov. 5, showed no sign of a tail of debris which was expected to be shooting off behind the object as it encountered the force of the sun. The finding has intensified scientific debate surrounding the true nature of the massive, thus raising questions about how the cosmic visitor behaves.
Amid the growing mystery around the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb is once again dominating headline for his position that an interstellar object might be a piece of extraterrestrial technology, reports The Times of Israel. This time comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar visitor to our solar system, is predicted to pass roughly 167 million miles from Earth in December. Avi Loeb has claimed that the comet 3I/ATLAS, which is estimated to be one or two city blocks in width, could pose a threat to humanity. NASA has dismissed his claims out of hand.
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Recently, Loeb has been pointing out what he says are multiple anomalies related to 3I/ATLAS. He’s been in this place before: Eight years ago, in 2017, he also publicized anomalies pertaining to the first-ever interstellar object known to humanity, ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “scout”). “With 3I/ATLAS, the anomalies are quite different” from ‘Oumuamua,” Loeb said. He had been puzzled by the shape of ‘Oumuamua, which he described as like a pancake, not a comet. When it comes to 3I/ATLAS, multiple factors mystify him.
“Its path in the plane, the ecliptic plane of the planets around the sun, is [aligned by] five degrees,” Loeb said. “The chance of [this happening] at random is one in 500. Its size is very anomalous … 1 million times more massive than ‘Oumuamua.” Its composition contains “nickel and very little iron, the way we find in industry rich alloys with aerospace application.” And, he said, its jet path was “not away from the Sun like comets … In July and August, the glow extended from the object towards the Sun, not away.”
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This week, Loeb invited Kim Kardashian to join his research team after the reality star tweeted asking for the “tea” on 3I/ATLAS — and received a response from NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy, to the chagrin of Loeb and other critics who slammed Duffy for responding to Kardashian while ignoring an official inquiry from Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. On October 28, Loeb appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and raised eyebrows when he compared 3I/ATLAS to, potentially, a tennis ball that a neighbor tossed into our backyard.
He told The Times of Israel that when he submitted an academic paper about 3I/ATLAS, he ended it by suggesting the object might be targeting our solar system. The editor accepted the paper but asked him to remove that final sentence.
“This is an example from the modern world of what the Vatican did at the time of Galileo,” Loeb said. “People have their own prejudices. I don’t have any problem with that.” “The whole idea of doing science is to maintain an agnostic point of view, be curious, wonder over the possibilities,” he said. “It’s what makes science exciting.”
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Instead, the object appears intact and showing “a compact source of light,” Loeb wrote. “This offers a clean test of the nature of 3I/ATLAS in the coming weeks,” he told The New York Post. “If 3I/ATLAS is a natural comet, it should be surrounded by a massive cloud of gas that carries at least 13 percent of the original nucleus mass.” If 3I/ATLAS fails to produce a cometary tail, Loeb maintained that it is likely not a naturally occurring comet.
ALSO READ: Comet 3I/ATLAS puzzles scientists again: Mystery around cosmic visitor's tail continues after NASA declines to release photos
Amid the growing mystery around the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb is once again dominating headline for his position that an interstellar object might be a piece of extraterrestrial technology, reports The Times of Israel. This time comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar visitor to our solar system, is predicted to pass roughly 167 million miles from Earth in December. Avi Loeb has claimed that the comet 3I/ATLAS, which is estimated to be one or two city blocks in width, could pose a threat to humanity. NASA has dismissed his claims out of hand.
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Multiple anomalies related to comet 3I/ATLAS
"On October 7, [2023], there was evidence from data collected by Israeli intelligence agencies of what Hamas was about to do,” Loeb told The Times of Israel in a phone interview. “They dismissed it. They had a theory that it was very unlikely Hamas would do something like that. They ignored anomalies in the data.”Recently, Loeb has been pointing out what he says are multiple anomalies related to 3I/ATLAS. He’s been in this place before: Eight years ago, in 2017, he also publicized anomalies pertaining to the first-ever interstellar object known to humanity, ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “scout”). “With 3I/ATLAS, the anomalies are quite different” from ‘Oumuamua,” Loeb said. He had been puzzled by the shape of ‘Oumuamua, which he described as like a pancake, not a comet. When it comes to 3I/ATLAS, multiple factors mystify him.
“Its path in the plane, the ecliptic plane of the planets around the sun, is [aligned by] five degrees,” Loeb said. “The chance of [this happening] at random is one in 500. Its size is very anomalous … 1 million times more massive than ‘Oumuamua.” Its composition contains “nickel and very little iron, the way we find in industry rich alloys with aerospace application.” And, he said, its jet path was “not away from the Sun like comets … In July and August, the glow extended from the object towards the Sun, not away.”
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This week, Loeb invited Kim Kardashian to join his research team after the reality star tweeted asking for the “tea” on 3I/ATLAS — and received a response from NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy, to the chagrin of Loeb and other critics who slammed Duffy for responding to Kardashian while ignoring an official inquiry from Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. On October 28, Loeb appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and raised eyebrows when he compared 3I/ATLAS to, potentially, a tennis ball that a neighbor tossed into our backyard.
Comet 3I/ATLAS a threat?
“Suppose this is a visit from alien technology to the solar system,” he said. “It’s something we should all know about. It would change everything… Even if the probability is small, we must consider such scenarios as 3I/ATLAS being a threat, something like a Trojan horse [that looks] completely innocent from the outside, something that will change history forever.”He told The Times of Israel that when he submitted an academic paper about 3I/ATLAS, he ended it by suggesting the object might be targeting our solar system. The editor accepted the paper but asked him to remove that final sentence.
“This is an example from the modern world of what the Vatican did at the time of Galileo,” Loeb said. “People have their own prejudices. I don’t have any problem with that.” “The whole idea of doing science is to maintain an agnostic point of view, be curious, wonder over the possibilities,” he said. “It’s what makes science exciting.”
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Comet 3I/ATLAS an artificial alien craft?
With no tail in sight, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb is suggesting that this is yet another indicator that the object could be an artificial alien craft. “For a typical comet, [passing the sun] should have resulted in a massive coma with dust and gas that would have been pushed by the solar radiation pressure and the solar wind to the shape of a typical cometary tail pointing away from the Sun,” Loeb wrote in an analysis of the images on Wednesday.Instead, the object appears intact and showing “a compact source of light,” Loeb wrote. “This offers a clean test of the nature of 3I/ATLAS in the coming weeks,” he told The New York Post. “If 3I/ATLAS is a natural comet, it should be surrounded by a massive cloud of gas that carries at least 13 percent of the original nucleus mass.” If 3I/ATLAS fails to produce a cometary tail, Loeb maintained that it is likely not a naturally occurring comet.
ALSO READ: Comet 3I/ATLAS puzzles scientists again: Mystery around cosmic visitor's tail continues after NASA declines to release photos
