As we await high-resolution images taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the mysterious interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb is still not giving up hope that it could be an alien spacecraft speeding through the solar system.
While there’s a broad consensus among scientists that 3I/ATLAS is most likely a comet predominantly made up of carbon dioxide, Loeb has pointed out its unusual chemical makeup, its close visits to several planets, and its enormous size, among other factors, to argue that it could be a technological artifact sent by an extraterrestrial civilization.
And now he’s firing back at critics, saying that he’s still suspicious of the object’s origins and that more data is needed.
“The verdict is still out, and I’m very much looking forward to getting more data in the coming weeks,” he told NewsNation over the weekend.
“You know, that’s the way science should be done,” he added. “It’s like a detective story, and any of my colleagues who claim to know it’s a comet of a type that is familiar to us is not really curious or imaginative about nature.”
“Let’s wait, then check what the subject is in the coming weeks rather than give the verdict now,” he concluded.
3I/ATLAS is expected to come within just 170 million miles of Earth — its closest pass of our planet — on December 19, allowing us to get a close look as it makes its way back out of the solar system. It will also make a close pass of Jupiter in March, which could allow spacecraft in the vicinity to gather even more data about it.
Following delays caused by the government shutdown, NASA is rumored to be releasing images of the rare visitor that were taken by the HiRISE camera attached to its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in the coming days. 3I/ATLAS passed by the Red Planet in early October, but the data was caught up in red tape as operations at the agency ground to a halt.
“Let’s just keep our fingers crossed,” Loeb told NewsNation, referring to the release of the images.
“Sharing of scientific data should have been prioritized over bureaucratic rules, because the data is time-sensitive as we plan additional observations of 3I/ATLAS,” he wrote in a recent blog post.
In a blog post earlier this month, Loeb argued that the HiRISE images could help us hone in on the object’s size, which he suspects could be as large as 3.1 miles across, with an estimated mass of more than 33 billion tons.
While Loeb’s claims that 3I/ATLAS could be an alien spacecraft that’s currently firing its thrusters to get out of the solar system as fast as possible have drawn considerable skepticism among experts, the astronomer is holding onto his convictions.
Loeb has previously admitted that 3I/ATLAS is most likely a comet. However, he refuses to rule out the possibility of a far more exotic hypothesis, putting him at odds with the broader scientific community.
“The truth about the nature of 3I/ATLAS will be revealed by publicly shared data and not by any storyline of gatekeepers,” Loeb added in his blog post.
More on 3I/ATLAS: Harvard Astronomer Says Mysterious Interstellar Object May Be Blasting Its Thrusters to Get Away From Us as Fast as Possible
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