A comet visiting our solar system from another star is only the third known interstellar object to pass our way. The approach of 3I/Atlas has sparked interest and curiosity in the astro community, but one prominent Harvard physicist has raised the possibility that it is more than a typical comet.
Avi Loeb, the chair of the astronomy department at Harvard, has suggested that the Manhattan-sized interstellar object could be an alien probe on a “reconnaissance mission”.
A comet or an alien probe?
Loeb raised the possibility that the trajectory of the interstellar object – which has been travelling through space for millions, possibly billions, of years – was “designed”.
“Maybe the trajectory was designed,” the Harvard physicist told Fox News Digital. “If it had an objective to sort of to be on a reconnaissance mission, to either send mini probes to those planets or monitor them… It seems quite anomalous.”
According to scientists, the object is over 12 miles wide and moving at a pace of 37 miles per second. NASA states that it could be within about 130 million miles of the Earth on October 30, USA Today reported. It was first detected in July by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, telescope located in Chile.
(Also read: Rare interstellar object zooming through solar system: All about the mysterious 3I/Atlas)
What makes Atlas an unusual comet?
NASA has classified 3I/Atlas as a comet. Loeb, however, says that an unexpected glow appears in front of the object rather than trailing behind it. This he called “quite surprising”.
“Usually with comets you have a tail, a cometary tail, where dust and gas are shining, reflecting sunlight, and that’s the signature of a comet,” Loeb told Fox News Digital. “Here, you see a glow in front of it, not behind it.”
The Harvard physicist also said that the object is unusually bright for a comet, but the strangest bit about it is its trajectory.
“If you imagine objects entering the solar system from random directions, just one in 500 of them would be aligned so well with the orbits of the planets,” he said.
Loeb pointed out that 3I/Atlas is expected to pass near to Mars, Venus and Jupiter. He says it is highly improbable that this trajectory happened at random. “It also comes close to each of them, with a probability of one in 20,000,” he said.
“If it turns out to be technological, it would obviously have a big impact on the future of humanity,” Loeb said. “We have to decide how to respond to that.”