A scientist has warned that the interstellar visitor moving closer to Earth could be a ‘Trojan Horse,’ where a technological object masquerades as a comet[1].
The Harvard professor, who has been monitoring 3I/ATLAS since its discovery in July, said Wednesday that there is a 30 to 40 percent chance the object ‘does not have a fully natural origin.’
Avi Loeb admitted that his ranking could change after new data comes in over the next few months, including observations next month from a spacecraft en route to Jupiter[2] and when 3I/ATLAS comes 167 miles within Earth in December.
‘We have no idea of the amount of traffic of extraterrestrial probes in the vicinity of the Solar system[3],’ he said in a blog post.
‘Given the uncertainty, it would be prudent to collect as much data as possible on interstellar objects from all directions and assess the level of risk based on that data.’
The object, a rare visitor from beyond the solar system, is unusually large and closely aligned with the plane of the planets, making it visible to orbiters around Mars[4] over the weekend.
NASA’s rover on the Martian planet[5] snapped images of 3I/ATLAS, which captured it as a massive cylindrical object, sparking fresh theories about alien technology.
Stargazers on social media shared color-enhanced images of the object, which showed the interstellar visitor having a green glow[6].
A Harvard scientists said there is a possibility that the interstellar visitor moving closer to Earth could be a ‘Trojan Horse,’ where a technological object masquerades as a comet
Loeb analyzed the Perseverance rover’s photos by calculating its distance, speed, and camera settings.
According to his initial study, Loeb was not convinced that 3I/ATLAS is actually a massive cylindrical object, noting that the strange shape might have been a trick of the rover’s camera stretching the object out.
He explained that the apparent cylinder from the rover’s ‘Navcam’ was likely caused by the camera stacking hundreds of images of 3I/ATLAS over a period of about 10 minutes, making it look more like a log than a ball.
The professor added that 3I/ATLAS is likely smaller and rounder, but still massive, with a potential diameter of more than 28 miles across.
Dr Horace Drew, a retired senior researcher at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), noted that the mysterious green glow seen in some images could be a result of the object being an interstellar spacecraft coated in nickel.
He explained that humans use the same practice on Earth-made space technology on a much smaller scale.
‘It is not a “comet,”‘ Drew shared in a post on X.
Drew disagreed with Loeb’s conclusion that the cylindrical shape was a result of the Mars rover sending back a stretched image over several minutes, claiming that an amateur astronomer on Earth captured a similar shape with their telescope.
The Perseverance rover on Mars captured new images of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS as it passed by the planet this weekend
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‘We can see an extended white shape, with a green coma outside. Not a small white ball,’ Drew explained in a post about the astronomer’s photograph.
However, Loeb recently cited the findings from the Very Large Telescope[7], highlighting how it detected an unusual nickel plume from the object.
Unlike natural comets, which always emit nickel alongside iron, 3I/ATLAS shows the metallic element without any detectable iron.
Loeb explained that this nickel signature is a hallmark of industrial production of nickel alloys.
‘Is this anomaly another clue for a possible technological origin of 3I/ATLAS?’ Loeb wrote in a blog post.
‘The paper suggests that chemical formation occurs through the nickel carbonyl channel, an extremely rare process in comets, but a standard technique in industrial nickel refining,’ he added.
The new study, published by astrophysicists in Chile in late August, found that 3I/ATLAS is shedding nickel at roughly five grams per second and cyanide at 20 grams per second, with both rising sharply as the object moves closer to the sun.
Researchers noted that the mechanisms driving these emissions are not typical of natural cometary processes.
They hypothesized that nickel might be released from dust through gentle processes, such as sunlight, causing it to evaporate or breaking down small nickel-containing compounds.
References
- ^ masquerades as a comet (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Jupiter (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Solar system (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Mars (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ NASA’s rover on the Martian planet (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ interstellar visitor having a green glow (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ cited the findings from the Very Large Telescope (www.dailymail.co.uk)