NASA on Wednesday released fresh images of the interstellar object called 3I/ATLAS that astronomers have determined is a comet probably older than our solar system, as US space agency officials dismissed speculation that it is actually an alien spacecraft.
3I/ATLAS was first spotted in July by an Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, and has been tracked by astronomers since then. Its unusual trajectory indicated that it was passing through the solar system from parts unknown.
“It’s natural to wonder what it is. We love that the world wondered along with us,” Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told a news briefing in Greenbelt, Maryland, referring to the comet as “our friendly solar system visitor.”
Photo: Gianluca Masi via AP
“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,” Fox said.
3I/ATLAS is only the third interstellar object ever observed by astronomers traveling through the solar system. The others were 1I/’Oumuamua, detected in 2017, and 2I/Borisov, discovered in 2019.
Comets are small solid celestial bodies that are a combination of rocky and icy material that evaporates as they warm when getting close to a star like our sun.
3I/ATLAS has attracted particular attention because of one scientist’s suggestion that it is not a comet, but rather alien technology due to its trajectory, composition and other factors.
At the outset of Wednesday’s briefing, NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said: “To start with, I’d like to address the rumors” about the nature of 3I/ATLAS.
“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.”
Kshatriya said that NASA missions are searching for signs of possible life beyond Earth, pointing to research published in September showing that a sample obtained by NASA’s Perseverance rover of rock formed billions of years ago from sediment on the bottom of a lake contains potential signs of ancient microbial life on Mars.
“We want very much to find signs of life in the universe,” he said.
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