"Since its discovery in early July, Loeb has posited that there's a chance that 3I/ATLAS is instead a piece of technology sent to us by an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization. He pointed out its highly unusual trajectory, which had already brought it suspiciously close to Mars last week, as well as its enormous suspected mass, measuring in at over 33 billion tons, making it orders of magnitude larger than the two previously observed interstellar objects. The object has also been shown to have a highly unusual chemical composition and sport a puzzling "anti-tail " pointing in the direction of the Sun."
""As of now, I assign a 30 to 40 percent likelihood that 3I/ATLAS does not have a fully natural origin," he wrote. "This low-probability scenario includes the possibility of a black swan event akin to a Trojan Horse, where a technological object masquerades as a natural comet." However, Loeb conceded that data from the European Space Agency's Juice spacecraft, which is expected to make a close approach of 3I/ATLAS next month, and NASA's Juno spacecraft, which will be close to 3I/ATLAS when it whips past Jupiter in March, could cause his probability ranking to "evolve.""
A 30–40% likelihood has been proposed that interstellar object 3I/ATLAS may be non-natural due to an unusual trajectory, a suspected mass exceeding 33 billion tons, atypical chemical composition, and an anti-tail pointing toward the Sun. The object passed near Mars and is orders of magnitude larger than previously observed interstellar visitors. Upcoming close approaches by ESA's Juice and NASA's Juno will gather post-perihelion observations to assess solar radiation effects, activity, speed, and sublimation. New images from NASA's Perseverance rover have been released, and forthcoming data could raise or lower the current probability estimate.
Read at Futurism
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]