Professor Says Mysterious Interstellar Object May Be Releasing Sentinels Around Jupiter

"Specifically, it's going to zip right past Jupiter's Hill radius, the boundary inside which the gas giant can keep an object in its own orbit without it being stolen by the Sun. In the Earth's vicinity, Lagrange points L1 and L2 are close to the boundary of our planet's Hill radius, a perfect place of equilibrium for satellites and other human-made objects, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, to orbit the Sun while using minimal amounts of fuel."

"Loeb suggests that if it is indeed an alien spacecraft, 3I/ATLAS could be passing through Jupiter's Hill radius to "seed" the planet with "technological devices." "If we find technological satellites of Jupiter that we did not send, it would imply that Jupiter is of interest to an extraterrestrial civilization," Loeb wrote. But not everybody's on board, including NASA. In light of considerable evidence that the mysterious visitor is a comet made of ice and dust,"

Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS will pass within about 170 million miles of Earth in under a month, then approach Jupiter's vicinity three months later along a highly eccentric trajectory. Recent non-gravitational acceleration altered its path toward Jupiter's Hill radius, the zone within which Jupiter can retain satellites against solar influence. Earth's Lagrange points lie near its Hill radius and provide fuel-efficient equilibrium points for spacecraft. One proponent hypothesizes the object could seed Jupiter with technological devices, while planetary scientists and NASA point to evidence of a cometary composition and favor outgassing as the cause of the acceleration.

Read at Futurism