"NASA "very much wants to find signs of life in the universe," said associate administrator Amit Kshatriya, but the interstellar object called 3I/ATLAS was not it. The US space agency released fresh images on Wednesday of the object, which zipped past Mars last month. "I think it's important that we talk about that. This object is a comet," Kshatriya said. "It looks and behaves like a comet. And all evidence points to it being a comet.""
"The European Space Agency's two satellites around Mars also made observations. "We were quick to be able to say, 'Yup, it definitely behaves like a comet.' We certainly haven't seen any technosignatures or anything from it that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet," Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said. "It was great that the world wondered along with us," she added."
NASA says the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS looks and behaves like a comet, and all evidence points to it being a comet. Scientists used more than a dozen scientific platforms, including Hubble, James Webb, Mars-orbiting satellites from NASA and ESA, to study the object. No technosignatures or indications of artificial origin were detected. The object zipped past Mars last month and is on its way out of the solar system. Named for the Chilean telescope that first spotted it in July, the comet is believed to predate the formation of Earth and the Sun. The closest approach to Earth will be about 167 million miles in mid-December, and it is visible in the predawn sky with binoculars or a telescope.
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