Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Avi Loeb is questioning NASA's recent public assessment of 3I Atlas, an interstellar comet that sparked widespread speculation after weeks of agency silence during the government shutdown.
While NASA officials described the object as a typical comet with intriguing differences, Loeb told Newsmax on Saturday that the agency overlooked multiple scientific anomalies that deserve deeper scrutiny.
During an appearance on "Saturday Agenda," Loeb said the press briefing lacked participation from scientists directly analyzing the data and criticized officials for portraying the comet as "boring."
"That is not the case with Atlas. In fact, it has 12 anomalies that were not even discussed during the press conference. For example, its size. It's a million times more massive than the first interstellar object," Loeb said.
He added that the combination of its mass and path makes the chances of such an object appearing naturally "about one in 100,000," raising questions about whether its course could be intentional.
Loeb also revealed new calculations suggesting the object will pass Jupiter in March 2026 at a distance "precisely right" for releasing probes that could remain in the planet's orbit, a detail he argued NASA did not address.
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James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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