Comet or alien? NASA-led group ramping efforts to track mysterious city-size object in our solar system
An asteroid warning network has announced it will investigate a comet that allegedly has potential alien origins.
The comet, known as 3I/ATLAS, allegedly has peculiar traits that have not been seen in nature before. This theory is disputed, though.
'Never seen in comets before.'
A NASA coordinated group called the International Asteroid Warning Network has added 3I/ATLAS to its list of observation campaigns for November, stating that it will monitor the comet for two months, ending in late January.
Concurrently, a Harvard astrophysicist told the New York Post that the comet, in addition to being the size of Manhattan, has several unusual characteristics that defy common knowledge about the objects.
Avi Loeb told the Post the comet has what is referred to as an "anti-tail," which is a jet of particles that points toward the sun instead of away from it. It's also emitting a plume — gas and dust that erupts from the surface — that contains four grams of nickel per second. Allegedly existing without iron, Loeb said this was unheard of.
Loeb also claimed the object also has non-gravitational acceleration that will bring it close to Jupiter, Venus, and Mars, which is suspicious enough for him to claim that the comet could actually be an alien probe.
The comet also allegedly contains a toxic gas that is not seen naturally occurring on Earth.
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The nickel compound nickel tetracarbonyl is apparently present in the comet. According to ScienceDirect, this gas is formed from the reaction of carbon monoxide with metallic nickel and is the primary cause of acute nickel toxicity. The gas is used in the process of obtaining "very pure nickel" but can cause "severe health effects" in humans.
Loeb said the process is only imaginable because it's used in industry and was "never seen in comets before."
At the same time, the Post cited a study that suggests that the compound could form naturally in a carbon monoxide-rich environment.
"The [nickel] emission is more centrally concentrated in the nucleus of the comet and favors hypotheses involving easily dissociated species such as metal carbonyls or metal-polycyclic-aromatic-hydrocarbon molecules," the study reads.
Loeb also said the object did not have a cometary tail, which "we usually see ... and in this case there was no evidence for such a tail."
Despite Loeb's alien warnings and the IAWN's plan for a lengthy observation period, the group states on its campaign page that the comet "poses no threat."
It does, however, present a "great opportunity for the IAWN community to perform an observing exercise due to its prolonged observability from Earth and high interest to the scientific community."
The group plans on holding a workshop on techniques to correctly measure the comet's astrometry, "a transformation without a change to a figure's shape or size, such as rotation or reflection."
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Manhattan-size space object in our solar system: Harvard astronomer’s 4 reasons it could be alien
In case you weren’t aware, right now a giant interstellar object roughly the size of Manhattan is hurtling through our solar system. Dubbed 3I/ATLAS, scientists speculate that it’s nothing more than a natural comet or rogue planetary fragment. Calculations suggest that it poses no threat to Earth or her citizens and will miss us by millions of miles.
But Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb isn’t ready to dismiss 3I/ATLAS as a harmless astronomical entity. There are too many strange “coincidences” surrounding it.
Loeb’s theory?
Aliens.
On a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Loeb told Glenn the four reasons he believes this is no ordinary space object.
The first reason 3I/ATLAS gives Loeb pause is its gargantuan size. 3I/ATLAS is significantly larger than its two predecessors, 'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov — a million times more massive than ‘Oumuamua and a thousand times more massive than Borisov.
“There is not enough rocky material in interstellar space to supply such a giant one once per decade to the inner solar system. We would expect it once per 10,000 years or so,” Loeb says.
The second reason he believes 3I/ATLAS could be a UAP is because according to Hubble Telescope images, the light the object emits is pointing “towards the sun,” as opposed to comets, where light points “away from the sun,” giving them a tail-like appearance.
“It's just like seeing an animal in your back yard and everyone says, ‘Oh, it must be a street cat because it has a tail,’ but then you look at the photograph of this animal and you see that the tail is coming from its forehead,” Loeb says.
Reason number three is that “the trajectory of [3I/ATLAS] is aligned to within five degrees with the ecliptic plane of the planets around the sun.” In simple terms, it's moving along the same "highway" as our solar system’s planets — an uncommon trajectory for interstellar objects.
“The chance of that is one in 500,” says Loeb, who says an alien life force would need to take this route if it wanted to do “a reconnaissance mission.”
Lastly, 3I/ATLAS’ arrival time is exceedingly peculiar. It’s passing through our solar system at a unique moment, coming very close to Mars, Venus, and Jupiter — a rarity given that these planets are constantly moving. You’d need perfect timing to line up near all three.
“That's another coincidence that might indicate fine-tuning,” Loeb tells Glenn.
Although experts attribute 3I/ATLAS' unusual traits to random chance, Loeb argues that the odds of such coincidences are "one in a million."
To hear more of his theory, watch the clip above.
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