Experts warn interstellar object may be on ‘reconnaissance mission’
“The path may have been designed,” Dr. Avi Loeb, a science professor at Harvard University, told Fox News Digital. “If it’s intended to be on a reconnaissance mission, either send small probes to it Those planets “Or observing them…it seems quite abnormal.”
The object – called 3I/ATLAS – was first discovered in early July by the Asteroid Impact Alert System Telescope, or ATLAS, located in Chile. This discovery marks only the third time An interstellar being It has been observed entering our solar system, according to NASA.
Although NASA has Loeb classified the object as a comet, and noted that the image of the cosmic visitor indicated an unexpected glow appearing in front of the object, rather than trailing behind it – something he described as “quite amazing.”
The object – called 3I/ATLAS – was first discovered in early July by the Asteroid Impact Alert System Telescope, or ATLAS, located in Chile. (Atlas/University of Hawaii/NASA)
“Normally with comets, you have a tail, a comet’s tail, where the dust and gas shine, and reflect sunlight, and that’s the comet’s signature,” Loeb told Fox News Digital. “And here you see the glow in front of it, not behind it.”
It is about 20 kilometers wide, making it the largest from manhattan, 3I/ATLAS is also unusually bright for its distance. However, according to Loeb, its most unusual characteristic is its trajectory.
“If you imagine objects entering the solar system from random directions, only one in 500 of them would fit well with the orbits of the planets,” he said.
Although NASA classified the object as a comet, Loeb noted that the image of the cosmic visitor indicated that the unexpected glow appeared in front of the object, rather than behind it – something he described as “pretty amazing.” (NASA, ESA, David Jewett (UCLA); Image processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))
The interstellar being, who comes from The center of the Milky Way is also expected to pass close to Mars, Venus and Jupiter, something that is very unlikely to happen randomly, according to Loeb.
“It’s also approaching every one of them, with a probability of one in 20,000,” he said.
The 3I/ATLAS object will make its closest approach to our sun, about 130 million miles away, on October 30, according to NASA.
“If it turns out Be technological“It’s clearly going to have a huge impact on the future of humanity,” Loeb said. “We have to decide how to respond to that.”
Dr. Avi Loeb, a professor of science at Harvard University, believes that the massive interstellar object could be a space probe. (Avi reads)
In January, seven years after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk launched the Tesla Roadster into orbit, astronomers from the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts confused it with an asteroid.
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A NASA spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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