The ATLAS theories are all over the map.
With 3I/ATLAS slated to fly-by Earth tomorrow, theories over its nature have hit a fever pitch. A new study asserts that our interstellar visitor behaves like other comets in our solar system — a theory Harvard scientist Avi Loeb labeled a non-argument that ignores its many “anomalies.”
In the study, published in Research Notes of the AAS, lead author Thomas Marshall Eubanks of the aerospace firm Space Initiatives dubbed 3I/ATLAS’ non-gravitational acceleration “typical of normal comets,” Spaceweather.com reported.
Loeb had previously dubbed its locomotion anomalous, citing ATLAS’ unusualmaneuver during its closest approach to the sun last month, which he deemed evidence that it potentially deployed technological thrusters.
However, Eubanks and co determine that these rocket-like propulsions were actually caused by the gentle push comets receive from offgassing. Most active comets move this way as gas and dust blast off their surface near our solar star, giving the object tiny pushes that alter their speed, orbit and spin.
The team determined this by measuring the “non-gravitational acceleration of 3I/ATLAS using long-baseline astrometry (the science of measuring the positions, distances, and motions of celestial objects) from NASA’s Psyche spacecraft and ESA’s Mars Trace Gas Orbiter,” Eubanks explained.
Their final conclusion: “3I/ATLAS is exotic and wonderful. It is also a comet.”
“It has obvious cometary outgassing with a non-gravitational acceleration to match,” the team wrote. “Claiming that it, too, is a spacecraft does not fit the data.”
However, Loeb dubbed their correlation tenuous — on par with seeing a dirt plume shoot up and assuming it’s caused by a living creature.
“When you see a cloud of dust in the desert you might argue that it’s an animal making this cloud because animals, when they run in the desert, they make a cloud of dust,” he told the Post. “But it could also be a car. So it’s really very superficial to say, ‘oh, just because we see dust, it must be a comet.’”
He added, “What they need to do, instead of explaining what are the commonalities with familiar comets, which they often do, is explain the anomalies.”
Loeb argued that they failed to address 3I/ATLAS’ 13 non-cometary traits, including the high levels of nickel (an industrial element) in its plume, its unusual trajectory around our planets, and a tail pointing toward the sun rather than away as is typical.
In a recent post to Medium, the astrophysicist floated a 14th anomaly — a rotation axis in the direction of the sun that he suspected could be evidence of a solar deflector shield.
Loeb referenced a new letter published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, in which Spanish astronomers detected “a wobbling high-altitude jet” in ATLAS between early July and September.
They found that the Sunward “anti-tail” is angled within eight degrees of the poles associated with the object’s axis of rotation — an extremely specific orientation.
This means, per Loeb, that “3I/ATLAS has a steady dayside and a steady nightside, which switch roles” during its closest approach to the Sun, which occurred on October 29.
Loeb found it highly unlikely — a probability of just 0.5% — that an interstellar object would be oriented so constantly Sunwardly and provide such a seamless transition from dayside to nightside.
One theory, Loeb told the Post, is that ATLAS is “technological” and had deployed a Sun-facing jet-like shield to protect itself from the solar wind and radiation. “It would launch a jet that somehow deflects the solar wind particles in the direction of the sun always,” he theorized.
He said this could explain why the jet was so tightly “collimated” — ten times longer than it is wide — rather than going in all directions as is typical when an ice pocket evaporates.
This concentrated beam would, in theory, protect its technological or biological exterior from any hazards from the sun.
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